Nutritional criteria: what will it mean for your products?

The groundwork for the implementation of proposals first outlined in the November 2004 UK governments’ White Paper ‘Choosing Health’ continues apace. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is having a final consultation on a nutritional profiling model which is to assist television regulator Ofcom in its work to consider possible restrictions to the advertising and promotion to children of foods that are high in fat, saturated fat, salt or sugar. A possible ancillary to this may be to use the criteria to underpin any government sponsored food labelling initiatives.

The FSA has undertaken various consultation exercises in relation to possible signposting labelling schemes for food, deciding between a Guideline Daily Allowance “GDA” or “traffic light” labelling system, and this ended on 15 April 2005. The main difficulty with one global labelling format that the Government has indicated it wishes to work towards is that food meets different nutritional needs in different people and, as has been repeatedly raised, there is no such thing as a bad food, just a bad diet. This therefore requires consumer education rather than ‘quick-fix’ labelling initiatives that may “demonise” certain foods.

However, the FSA are currently on their final consultation for nutritional criteria that proposes a system that can be interpreted as establishing just that. A point scoring system has been created whereby if a food has certain amounts of energy, saturated fat, sodium or total sugar it will be labelled as “high in saturated fat, salt or sugar”. Media reports have already linked this category with “junk” food. A criterion is also established for the amount of protein, fibre and fruit and vegetables that a food contains whereby that food may be categorised as a “healthier choice”.

An indicative list provided by the FSA places certain categories of nutritious foods in the higher category dividing the foods between their food groups so that bran cereal falls within a “higher” category and takeaway pizza may be deemed a “healthier choice” if it has a fish topping.

The proposed scoring system may be accessed here. This will open a PDF in a new window.

Examples of food rated in the current model may be accessed here. This will open a PDF in anew window.

The actual consultation may be accessed here and responses are requested by 26 September 2005.

Ofcom’s research report of July 2004, ‘Childhood Obesity – Food Advertising in Context,’ concluded that although television advertising had a modest direct effect on children’s food preferences this influence wais small when compared with other factors potentially linked to childhood obesity such as exercise, trends in family eating habits, parents’ demographics, school policy, public understanding of nutrition, food labelling, that affected children’s food preferences and diet.

In light of the research, the UK White Paper ‘Choosing Health’ and the FSA’s proposals on nutrient profiling, Ofcom are expected to publish a consultation on how it plans to change the rules on TV advertising by the end of the year.

A separate consultation is currently being undertaken by the FSA into targets proposed for nutrient content of school meals with responses requested by 18 October 2005. This may be accessed here.

The target nutrient specifications for manufactured products would however allow the following to be provided to schools with maximum voluntary levels that would mean the foods would be categorised within the ‘high in saturated fat, salt or sugar’ classification and subject to potential future restrictions in advertising were these products on the market directly to consumers: Poultry products, sausages, burgers grill steaks and meatballs (no gravy), pizza, vegetarian mince, vegetarian pakora, pancake roll, samosa and spring roll, frankfurter and hot dog, cottage pie, shepherds pie and stovies, battered sausage, bridie, cold pork pie, meat/Cornish pastie, meat pie with pastry, sausage roll, scotch egg and scotch pie, quiche, vegetarian pastie, flan, nut cutlets, loaf and roast, gravy, salad cream, mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and brown sauce and pickle and relish, as well as fruit pies and fruit crumble, sponge puddings including jam roly poly, spotted dick and ice cream as well as any savoury snacks and crisps made from potato, rice, wheat , oats or corn.

It would appear that stricter requirements on advertising certain products might be implemented in due course than those that are served up as mandatory choices to children in their schools.