Dutch Minister opts for food education app

October 20th, 2016

This week the Dutch Minister of Health Edith Schippers has decided to substitute the use of the Dutch Choices logo by a smartphone app. The use of the Dutch logo will be terminated in October 2017. The Dutch Choices Foundation “Ik Kies Bewust” (IKB) will use this one year transition time to develop new ways to drive reformulation and consumer education on healthier choices. 

This step is part of a broader process of renewal of healthy food policies. The Minister strongly supports reformulation, as is shown in the Road Map for Product Improvement that has been issued during the Dutch EU presidency early 2016. Both the Minister and the IKB Foundation want to build further on the good results of ten years of logo use in The Netherlands. Scientific studies have shown that this logo and its underlying criteria have been an effective driver for product improvement. In ten years time, the criteria have been adapted three times. This has caused a further decrease of sugar, salt and saturated fat in hundreds of products. In addition, 95% of the Dutch adults are aware of the logo, which has a 93% coverage of the Dutch retail market.
Finally, the Dutch government has decided to develop a comprehensive database on food information. This should also include the nutrition data per product. A database like this is indispensible both for consumer education by the app and for the monitoring of product improvement. 

This discussion in The Netherlands does not have consequences for the use of the Choices label in other countries. The Choices interactions with countries and international organisations will proceed unchanged.