Let competition decide nutritional labelling, says King
Sainsbury boss Justin King has joined the ranks of those calling for consumers to be allowed to decide what form of front of pack nutritional labelling they prefer.
Addressing the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) think tank’s annual convention called ‘Shaping the future’, King said: “I don’t think the issue of front of pack labelling is as controversial as many think: I believe in competition and competition is the best way to bring about change.”
Sainsbury uses what it calls its ‘wheel of health’ - a version of the ‘traffic light’ labelling system preferred by the Food Standards Agency, rather than the guideline daily amount (GDA) approach, adopted by Tesco and supported by many food manufacturers. But King said: “Customers have made it clear they want better information: but if we are all competing, we will move it further and faster than any legislation will.”
Others retailers that have opted for the traffic light front of pack labelling system include The Co-operative Group and Waitrose. Asda has also announced its plans to go for this approach. So far only a few manufacturers - such as McCain and New Covent Garden Food - have plumped for traffic lights rather than GDAs.
Tesco said it had noticed a marked uptake of healthier own-label food products since it first introduced front of pack labelling. Other supermarkets using traffic light systems had experienced the same. Waitrose md Steven Esom said: “Customers are going for less processed food and are trying to eat themselves healthy.”
Tesco’s commercial and trading director Richard Brasher said that through listening to its customers it was “changing the way we run our business”. He added: “We are really starting to help people to a better place and live more healthily … food labelling does work.”
