Food labelling to advance better education for life.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Nutrition labels are potentially a major instrument for enabling consumers to make healthier food choices, but current insights into how nutrition labels are used by consumers in real-world shopping situations are limited, making the science-based formulation of new labelling policies and the evaluation of existing ones difficult. The objective of the European Union-funded project Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) is to determine how nutrition labelling can affect dietary choices, consumer habits and food-related health issues. SUBJECTS/METHODS: A wide range of qualitative and quantitative consumer research methods is being used, including physical auditing, label sorting tasks, eye tracking and electrodermal response, structured interviews and analysis of retail scanner data. RESULTS: First results from the project show that, on the basis of consumer responses, nutrition labels available in Europe can be categorised as non-directive, semidirective or directive. Penetration of nutrition labelling on food and drink packages in five product categories seems widespread, with the nutrition table on the back of packs being the most prominent format (found on 84% of over 37,000 products audited in 28 countries). The higher penetration observed in Northern Europe is paralleled by more public health campaigns in this region alerting consumers to nutrition labelling systems and elements covered therein (for example, calories, salt and fat). CONCLUSIONS: The findings to date indicate that nutrition labelling is widespread in Europe but formats and level of detail may differ between countries and products. Upcoming studies within FLABEL will decipher whether and how the various elements of nutrition labels affect attention, liking, understanding, use and dietary choices, and what the implications are for stakeholders such as policy makers.

Penetration of nutrition information on food labels across the EU-27 plus Turkey.

OBJECTIVES: The European Union (EU)-funded project Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) aims to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects consumers' dietary choices and shopping behaviour. The first phase of this study consisted of assessing the penetration of nutrition labelling and related information on various food products in all 27 EU Member States and Turkey. METHODS: In each country, food products were audited in three different types of retailers to cover as many different products as possible within five food and beverage categories: sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, pre-packed chilled ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts. RESULTS: More than 37 000 products were audited in a total of 84 retail stores. On average, 85% of the products contained back-of-pack (BOP) nutrition labelling or related information (from 70% in Slovenia to 97% in Ireland), versus 48% for front-of-pack (FOP) information (from 24% in Turkey to 82% in the UK). The most widespread format was the BOP tabular or linear listing of nutrition content. Guideline daily amounts labelling was the most prevalent form of FOP information, showing an average penetration of 25% across all products audited. Among categories, breakfast cereals showed the highest penetration of nutrition-related information, with 94% BOP penetration and 70% FOP penetration. CONCLUSIONS: Nutrition labelling and related information was found on a large majority of products audited. These findings provide the basis for subsequent phases of FLABEL involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use by consumers of different nutrition labelling formats.