Major grocers throw weight behind new food labelling scheme

All four UK Governments have launched a national recommendation for a new, uniform system which shows how much fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories are in food products.

The voluntary system combines traffic light colour-coding and nutritional information to help shoppers make informed choices when doing their food shopping. 

Retailers have worked closely with Government on the design of the new labelling guidelines, including colours, format and font sizes.

Front of pack labeling has been much discussed with shoppers reportedly confused over retailers’ varied front-of-pack labels.

The UK’s largest grocer Tesco last year adopted the traffic light labeling system after combining it with its existing Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) following new research. The new scheme replaces GDAs and has already been launched in Asda and Waitrose.

British Retail Consortium director of food and sustainability Andrew Opie said: “This is great news for consumers. A consistent scheme across all the major supermarkets means wherever we shop we will see the same front of pack labelling. That will help improve understanding of the label and make healthier choices easier.

“UK retailers have led the way on developing clear and consistent front of pack labelling over the last few years and we are delighted to see that such an important project is today getting the green light.”