Law expert defends food industry labelling motives

Accusations that food and drink firms are backing the guideline daily amount (GDA) labelling scheme merely as a way of boosting sales have been dismissed by law firm Eversheds, which claimed industry has consumers’ best interests at heart.

It came as the Children’s Food Campaign warned that half of adults, and most children, lacked the mathematical skills needed to interpret GDAs, which are to be marketed by the food industry in a £4M advertising campaign.

Owen Warnock, partner at the firm, said: “Some cynics suggest that food businesses are opposing the traffic light system in order to protect their sales of less ‘healthy foods’, but from our experience of working with the food industry, I am convinced the concerns are genuine on both sides of the debate,” he said.

Food industry GDA campaigner Jane Holdsworth said GDAs were easy to understand and helped consumers to make healthy decisions about what they eat. “We have made it simple to compare what’s inside thousands of everyday foods so you can choose what best suits your diet,” she said.

But heart disease charity the National Heart Forum claimed the food industry wass disingenuous in its GDA marketing campaign. Chair Sir Alexander Macara said: “It’s both disappointing and somewhat surprising that the food industry has done this, especially as it professes to cooperate fully with government and has been involved throughout the process of the development of the FSA [Food Standards Agency] labelling scheme. This is a flawed conversion to health labelling and a blatant move by the food industry to do what suits it, not its customers.”

Consumer watchdog Which? also questioned the food industry’s motives for adopting GDAs over traffic light signposting. “Are retailers and manufacturers shying away from using simple, easy-to-interpret colours because they’re scared to be upfront about the fat, sugar and salt levels in their products?” it asked. “Instead of spending £4M to explain a labelling scheme to consumers, why not just use a scheme that’s easy to understand in the first place?”

Last year Which? warned that launching multiple labelling systems would be problematic. “A medley of different labels in the shops will only increase confusion and damage any opportunity to help reduce the incidence of diet-related disease in the UK,” said chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith.

But Warnock argued that using both labelling systems was a step forward. “Many health campaigners are particularly worried that having two parallel systems will be the worst of all worlds. However, in my view, experimenting with both will help to find out which is the most beneficial for consumers and the industry in the long term.”