Food information to consumers

Misleading information about
food, nutrition and food safety
Henry Uitslag
Food policy adviser
Overview
 Introduction
 (Possibly) misleading information and labelling of food products
 New regulation on food information to consumers
 What is healthy, what is safe?
 Nutrition and health claims: key issues to be resolved
 Conclusions
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De Consumentenbond
 Dutch consumers’ association with 550.000 members
 Since 1953
 Mission: to defend consumers’ rights and help them make
informed choices
- Tests and comparative information
- Advocacy, campaigning and lobbying
(active member of BEUC and Consumers International)
- Advice
 Media: Consumentengids, Gezondgids, Reisgids, Geldgids,
Digitaalgids, Consumentengids Online
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Nutrition and healthy eating
 Ons eten gemeten (Our food, our health: RIVM 2006)
-
Our food has become safer and safer
The main risk is the unhealthy diet of the Dutch population
We eat too much, and our diet has the wrong composition
The biggest chances to counteract this trend, are in the hands of industry
-
Limit the supply of unhealthy products
Reduce portion sizes
Reduce the amount of advertising of unhealthy foods to children
Improve product composition
- Government should provide for conditions for change, and if necessary
force change
 www.rivm.nl
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Campaigning on nutrition issues
Some activities by Consumentenbond
- Call for restrictions on unhealthy food advertising to children (sept
2006)
- Research ‘Super Healthy?’ (feb 2007 and june 2008)
- Symposium ‘Opzouten!’ (april 2007): reducing salt content
- Report ‘Logoland’ (september 2007)
- Report ‘Unhealthy food advertising to children (june 2008)
- Report ‘Vet Lekker, fastfoodmarketing doorgelicht’ (sept. 2009)
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A few good reasons for improved labelling
 New EU proposal for food information to consumers
 What (Dutch) consumers want to know:
-
Expiry date
Price
Brand
Weight
Composition/ ingredients
Nutritional value (fat, carbohydrates, sodium, protein, etc.)
Origin
 Consumers find nutritional information important, but don’t
always understand it
Source: Ministerie van VWS, conducted by Schuttelaar & Partners, 2005
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Towards simplified nutrition labelling
- Health marks
- Colour coding
- %GDAs
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Towards simplified labelling
Information
Guidance
Multiple traffic light
%GDA
My Choice
Nutrition table
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Healthy clover
Position Consumentenbond
 The most important nutrients front-of-pack
 How? Multiple colour coding indicating whether a food is high,
medium or low in the most important nutrients
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Why colour coding
 Consumer research
 Simple information at-a-glance
 Comparing possible within and across food categories
 Consistent across all food categories
 Is perceived as credible
 Not patronizing
 Sales data: up to 35% change
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%GDAs (% reference intake)
 Does not reflect the need to lower the intake of certain nutrients
 Consumers possibly see the %ri as an aim
 Harder to understand than multiple colour coding
 Too complicated when in a hurry (shopping)
 RIs differ per individual: this might be misleading
 No stimulus for reformulation
 Misleading indication of portion size
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Dutch Health Council:
Review of front-of-pack labelling (2008)
Recommendations
 Nutrition information should be front-of-pack
 Industry is working on this: %GDA system
 %GDA should be made comprehensible by adding traffic lights to
indicate whether the values are beneficial, neutral or unbeneficial
 %GDA system should not offer choice to whether certain nutrients are
declared front-of-pack
 The nutrients in the current GDA-system do not refect the dietary
recommendations
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Dutch Health Council:
Review of front-of-pack labelling (2008)
Private health mark systems:
 Create one health mark system
 Stronger criteria
 Use the Dutch Nutrition Centre classification: eat plenty, eat
moderately or eat sparingly
 Make two versions: eat plenty & eat in moderation
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Dutch Health Council:
Review of front-of-pack labelling (2008)
Problems associated with Health Marks
 Consumers possibly think that products with a mark always have
a beneficial composition
 Confusion for some product groups:
 Cheese: criterion saturated fat 12 g/ 100g
 Meat products: criterion saturated fat 4 g/ 100g
 Confusion when snacks can bear a mark
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Confusing?
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What does it mean?
No artificial colorings
and flavorings
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Conclusions
 Current EU-proposal on food information to consumers (with
%GDA system) is not in line with consumers wishes and needs
 Independent research is needed to decide on the best way
forward: traffic light labelling deserves a fair chance
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Misperceptions about health and safety
No artificial colorings
and flavorings
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Misperceptions about health and safety
Experts view vs consumers views about food risk
Scientists:
Consumers:
1. Unbalanced diet
1. Environmental contaminants
2. Food infections
2. Unbalanced diet
3. Process contaminants
3. Pesticide residues
4. Nanotechnology
4. Process contaminants
5. Environmental contaminants
5. Food infections
6. Pesticide residues
6. Additives
7. Additives
7. GMO
8. GMO
8. Nanotechnology
Source: Dutch nutrition centre 2009
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Misperceptions about health and safety
Trends in marketing
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
Natural

Fresh

‘Honest / fair food’

Pure

Clean label
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Misperceptions about health and safety
Unilever campaign: Eerlijk is Heerlijk

Clean label: no E-numbers

Fresh

From the farm, from the
local market

‘Honest food’

Pure

Healthy (suggested, not
claimed)
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Misperceptions about health and safety
Conclusions
 Consumers have a wrong perception about what’s
important
 This might lead to an undesirable fear of healthy
products (fruits & vegetables, fish)
 Industry’s marketing methods shouldn’t abuse and
influence consumers’ perception and fear for chemicals
 Education and information should take into account the
different perception of the consumer
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EU Claims regulation
 Aim is to protect consumers from misleading health and
nutrition claims
 Health claims to be evaluated by EFSA
 Only a limited amount of nutrition claims are allowed,
under certain conditions
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EU Claims regulation: problems
 Claims that might be scientifically sound, but meaningless:
- “Sodium aids the absorption of nutrients during digestion
(such as the active transport of nutrients and water from
the gut)”
- “proteins provide energy to the body”
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Immune system: anti-oxidants
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Immune system?
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The Kellogg’s case
How to circumvent the claims regulation:
 Fortification of cornflakes with iron;
 Bio-availability of the metallic iron in Kellogg’s is negligible;
 No ‘hard’ claims on the pack;
 Kellogg's: “40% of women suffer from iron deficiency”;
 Report RIVM: shortage of iron in Dutch diet is very much
overestimated; concern about iron overload for some groups;
 Danish authorities rejected Kellogg’s application;
 Dutch authorities have no rights to reject fortified foods if
evidence says that there is no nutritional need;
 See http://sites.rvu.nl/search?q-mm=ijzer
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The Kellogg’s case
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Claims regulation
 Companies should be more respectful to the aim the regulation;
 Interpretation issues to be resolved:
 Wording ánd suggestion should reflect the scientific evidence;
 It should be impossible to ‘shop around’ for figures about shortages
of intake of vitamins and minerals;
 Target populations should be adequately mentioned on the label
 Food Authorities should have more capacity for the enforcement
of regulation on misleading claims
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Read our reports (some in English)
www.consumentenbond.nl
huitslag@consumentenbond.nl
See also
www.beuc.eu
www.consumersinternational.org
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