Dutch Choices Foundation launched new criteria

July 22th, 2015

After some months of revising by the National Scientific Committee, the Dutch Choices Foundation (Vinkje) recently launched its new product criteria. The revision is in full coherence with the revision of the international criteria and raises the bar for salt, added sugar, saturated fat and dietary fibre. Consequently, several hundred products that complied with the ‘old’ criteria, now have to be reformulated into healthier product to keep the Choices logo. The Dutch food industry has till the first of January 2017 to improve their products.

An overview of the new criteria (in Dutch) can be found here. An infographic with more information on the changes in products can be found here (in Dutch).

Revision
The criteria are revised every four years by independent food and nutrition scientists. The aim is to challenge producers to improve their products, thereby becoming healthier step by step. The scientific commission looked into the composition of products and the opportunities to decrease their levels of saturated fat, sugar, salt and energy. “There is still much to gain to improve the food environment. The dietary energy density needs to be lowered and the amount of saturated fat, added sugar and salt have to be reduced. At the same time, and that is the challenge, it is important that the improved products are still tasty. There lies the difficulty, as fat, sugar and salt bring flavour to the food” says professor Kees de Graaf, chairman of the scientific committee.

For more information see www.hetvinkje.nl (Dutch)