Traffic light labelling: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Revising legislation on labelling has been on the European Commission's agenda for the last few years.
Discussion papers have been published, impact assessments carried out and stakeholder consultations have taken place.
However, things will become more concrete by the end of this year as the Commission is soon expected to publish proposals to amend both the Labelling Directive (2000/13/EC) and the Nutrition Labelling Directive (90/496/EEC).
In recent years, a recurrent idea has been put forward to promote healthy diets by signposting, and by traffic light labelling in particular.
These ideas have been discussed within the framework of stakeholder consultations on labelling, but also in discussions about the EU White Paper on Nutrition and in ongoing talks about the WHO European Second Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Policy 2007-2012.
The traffic light system usually referred to is one proposed by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) in March 2006. It states that product labels should bear a red, amber or green colour coding to indicate whether levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt are high, medium or low, based on specific nutritional criteria developed by the FSA.
Although its use in the UK is voluntary and currently limited to certain retailers and a few food companies, there have been persistent suggestions that a mandatory EU traffic light system should be established.
Clearly, consumer information is a priority in helping people adopt a balanced and healthy diet. In that sense, the nutrition information displayed on food product labels is essential.
The traffic light system, however, goes considerably further than simply providing information about the nutritional content of products.
It clearly stigmatises those containing too many 'red dots', and in doing this runs the risk of misleading consumers into thinking that it would be unhealthy to eat such products.
The colours that have been chosen for the coding have an implied negative meaning: a red light in road traffic rules means 'stop'. Similarly, on a product label the implied meaning is 'avoid' or 'don't buy'.
What will happen to the concept of a balanced and varied diet, one that occasionally allows some red dots to be consumed?
Do traffic lights really inform consumers, or do they simply state on the label which products they should or should not be eating?
In theory, a traffic light system would seem useful and beneficial in terms of consumer information. In reality, however, it could lead to a potentially negative, counter-productive outcome.
These systems make people feel bad about what they eat. Products such as crisps, snacks, confectionery, soft drinks and pastry can all be part of, and even contribute to, a healthy diet. These types of products also contribute to one important aspect of nutrition that is often forgotten in these discussions: pleasure.
Another aspect to consider is the effect this system would have on companies. Businesses focusing their efforts on marketing quality and safe products are unlikely to be happy about displaying logos or messages on their products that indicate consumers should eat less of them, or perhaps not buy them at all.
A traffic light system is just one of many ideas on how to promote - or impose - healthy diets.
If negatively singling out certain products is what some would like to achieve, then one day we may even see proposals for the use of caution signs, flashing lights, alarm signals and even barbed wire around the counters that display those products!
''Miguel da Silva is an adviser at European Advisory Services (EAS) in Brussels, which specialises in European and international regulation on food and nutritional products. Contact him on +32 2 218 1470''
