EU Health Council conclusions on reformulation

June 21st, 2016

At 17 June the EU Health Council, chaired by the Dutch Minister of Health Edith Schippers, has accepted the conclusions on food improvement. In these conclusions the EU Health Council shares its concerns about the prevalence of overweight, obesity and other diet-related non-communicable diseases in the European population. As nutrition plays an important role in these problems, the council stresses that the healthy choice should be made the easy choice for consumers. Special attention has to be paid for low income consumers. Food improvement by means of reformulation is an important tool to do so.

Reformulation in all food categories is required, especially in the so-called mainstream products. The council recognises that cooperation between different stakeholders and especially collaboration with the industry is of essence to reach these goals. Moreover, in the conclusions member states are urged to have a national plan for product improvement ready by the end of 2017, to make the healthy choice easier for consumers by 2020. These national plans should make full use of existing structures and tools. The nutrients at stake are SAFA, added sugar, salt and energy; similar to the Choices criteria. In line with this, the council acknowledges existing sets of criteria, e.g. for labelling schemes such as Choices. Furthermore, in the conclusions it is highlighted that cross-border cooperation in food improvement is required, and that more effort in research and monitoring is needed.

Choices International welcomes these conclusions as a next step towards a Europe wide movement towards healthier food.

Read the full conclusions here (PDF).

Presentation of results at Clymbol Conference

June 16th, 2016

After 4 years of research, the end results of the Clymbol project were presented at a conference in Brussels 15 June. During this meeting, that focussed on the role of health-related claims and symbols in consumer behaviour, the main findings of this research were presented. Below some highlights of all the results presented.

The study shows that the appearance on the market of products with a health or nutrition claim or symbol is not equally distributed among Europe. An explanation for thisare the national initiatives that use symbols to indicate a healthier choice in a product category, like the keyhole symbol in Scandinavia and the Choices logo in The Netherlands.

Overall, products carrying a claim or symbol have a relatively healthier nutrient composition compared to products without a claim. Several nutrient profiles were compared, to see how strict they were on selecting the healthier products in a food composition database. Here it was demonstrated that some (inter)national used sets of criteria did select healthier products and that the sets of criteria used by several health symbols were even more strict.

Results based on household purchase data from GfK show that consumers value products that carry a health symbol, such as the Keyhole logo or the Choices logo. No specific group of consumers that make more or less use of the logo could be identified. The effect of the logo introduction on purchase volumes has not yet been investigated.

Test in supermarkets showed only a small effect on the purchase of products carrying a claim. Real life tests demonstrated that the Choices logo does not lead to overconsumption when used in a somewhat artificial restaurant setting. In addition, the study confirms that the logo reduces the intake of unhealthy foods. Also other studies were performed on the influence of claims or symbols on consumer choice. The overall conclusion was that claims or symbols only have subtle effects on purchase choice. This effect was mainly influenced the motivation to choose for healthy products. Read more about the Clymbol project at http://www.clymbol.eu/.

European positive logos presented at Obesity Summit

June 2nd, 2016

The European Obesity summit takes place this week in Gothenburg (Sweden). At the first day of the conference the three European positive front-of-pack logo organisations – Keyhole, Heart logo and Choices – presented themselves during a joint side session. This session was attended by more than 50 people, who responded positively on the fact that the positive labelling organisations had already such a strong position in Europe, with 12 countries implementing a positive FOP scheme. A great opportunity to join forces and stress the importance of consumer friendly labelling. Joao Breda, European WHO director Food and Nutrition, acknowledged the importance of our efforts during his presentation. Consumer-friendly front-of-pack labelling is one of the priority policy actions in the new WHO Euoropean Food and Nutrition Action Plan. Mr. Breda made a strong plea for interpretive front-of-pack labelling to help consumers, and not in the least those with low income / low education, to make healthier choices. “Front-of-pack labelling is a must for public health. Those who dispute this, do that for other than health reasons”.

Dr. Ellen van Kleef from Wageningen UR and member of the CLYMBOL consortium showed the audience that more and more studies are available that show some positive effects of FOP labelling on consumer knowledge or behaviour. All in all a positive session about positive logos!