The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched the next stage of its initiative to improve nutritional labelling on food products and enable consumers to make healthier food choices more easily.
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A TV advertising campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the FSA’s ‘traffic light’ colour-coded front-of-pack food labels, is to begin airing from today (18 January), accompanied by other press, poster and online media activity.
“Our new labelling TV ads, like the traffic light approach, are clear and simple, with the beauty being that these labels speak for themselves,” said FSA chair Deirdre Hutton. “Our extensive and published research demonstrates that the use of traffic light colours is key in helping people interpret nutritional information on foods. We want to highlight to shoppers that these labels are now out there and really can help us all to make healthier choices.”
Referring obliquely to the difference of opinion between the FSA and the Food & Drink Federation, which along with certain retailers backs a system based on GDA (guideline daily amount) percentages rather than colours, Hutton added: “Most manufacturers and retailers are now using front-of-pack nutritional labelling and this is good news. Some shoppers find extra GDA information useful, and all the industry needs to do is add traffic light colours to their GDA schemes to ensure the consumer gets the best of both worlds.”
The 10-second TV ads, which each have a slightly different execution, reflect the user-friendly attributes of the traffic light labelling, the FSA said.
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By GlobalDataThe FSA added that its most recent research suggests that shoppers clearly understand the traffic light system. About 76% of those asked interpreted a red light on a product as meaning the food is high in something that we should be trying to cut down or keeping on eye on, while only 16% interpreted it as meaning it is unhealthy and shouldn’t be eaten at all, the agency said.
