Food industry vows to fight label laws

By Tim King

Date: 01/09/05

The advertising and labelling of food has now become a battleground in the campaign against obesity. Advertisers, retailers and food and drink manufacturers are fighting a rearguard action against legislation that they fear might restrict the claims that they are allowed to make for products.

In May, the European Parliament voted on a draft regulation that would set EU rules for nutritional and health claims made for foods.

The result was a victory for lobbyists from the advertising and food industry and a set-back for consumer groups.

The MEPs voted against a key provision in the regulation, which would require that foods carrying nutritional or health claims respect certain nutritional profiles. The European Commission, in its original proposal, wanted to make it impossible for products with a high level of sugar, fat or salt to carry some other health claim, such as being rich in fibre or some vitamins. The MEPs voted by 303 votes to 286 to strike out this now infamous Article 4.

But Markos Kyprianou, the commissioner for health and consumer protection, told MEPs that he regarded Article 4 as a vital part of the legislation.

The vote was on only the first reading of the draft regulation, which now moves to a second reading. It seems unlikely that the Commission will accept the Parliament's amendment and the Council of Ministers has, up to now, sided with the Commission.

The Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA) campaigned against banning health claims on products that did not respect certain nutrient profiles. CIAA Secretary-General Daniela Israelachwili said the industry did not have objections to nutrient profiling per se. But it did not accept that there should be products about which communication was banned. That would not encourage industry to make investments in improved products, she said.

CIAA's Sabine Nafziger said the Commission had not defined the detail of the nutrient profiling nor the norms which products would have to respect in order to be allowed to have health claims made for them. The industry said claims that were scientifically based and truthful should be permitted.

So it seems that the battle will intensify in the coming months over the merits and demerits of the draft regulation.

In addition, the Commission is supposed to be coming up with a proposal to revise the 1990 nutrition labelling directive. Already long delayed, this proposal is on hold while the Commission embarks on an extended impact assessment. It, together with a revision of the 2000 framework directive on labelling, is not expected until the end of next year.

l The European consumers' organisation, BEUC, publishes today (1 September) a study of consumer attitudes to nutritional labelling which shows that they "seldom or never" read data about the salt, protein, fibre or E-number content of food before buying it.

What most concerns them in the shop is the price, expiry date, quantity and brand name. Less than half read any nutritional information but the fat quantity is read by 57%.

Three thousand people were interviewed for the survey, 600 in each of Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Spain.

Barbara Gallani, BEUC's food policy adviser, said she was concerned that the study suggested that consumers were strongly influenced by health claims. Interviewees were shown a product which, although high in sugar, claimed to have a high calcium content. Two-thirds thought that the product was very good or rather good.

The majority of consumers paid more attention to and claimed to understand better the marketing claims on the pack than the basic nutritional analysis tables that were shown on some packs.

For BEUC the survey results underline the need to press ahead with proposed regulation on health and nutrition claims.

Gallani said BEUC's aim was to establish data about consumer attitudes to prepare the ground for further arguments over food labelling.

BEUC wants the Commission to bring forward quickly a proposal for mandatory nutritional labelling. The Commission wants a combination of a nutritional analysis table with simplified signposting on the front of food packaging.

The survey suggested that parents of children under the age of 13 tended to pay more attention than other respondents to marketing claims. BEUC concludes that there is a need for a more specific regulation of the marketing of products targeted at children.

Article reports on opposition from the food industry, retailers and advertisers to proposed EU legislation which might restrict the claims that they are allowed to make for products.