Opposition to anti-nutrient profiling vote

Renate Sommer, rapporteur of the European Parliament’s (EP’s) Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI), suggested scrapping nutrient profiling in a draft report. The document was approved by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sitting on ENVI on March 16 by 52 votes in favour, two against and five abstentions.

The decision followed 18 months of wrangling over amendments to the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation.

Sommer’s report will now be forwarded for the EP’s first reading in plenary session at the end of May, but several stages remain before it becomes law.

Nutrient profiling unlikely to be ditched​

“I think profiling will happen,” ​said Wood. “I doubt [the decision] will get through the plenary session. It has to be cleared by the [European] Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The Commission is in favour and the Member States are generally in favour.”​

Stricter nutrient profiling would prevent processors from making nutrition claims, such as ‘this product is high in fibre’ for products with high levels of saturated fat, salt or sugar.

Pros and cons of nutrient profiling​

Italy and Germany form the main opposition to nutrient profiling. “Germany has a strong sugar confectionery industry and I can understand why it would want it [nutrient profiling] deleted,”​ said Wood. “Otherwise, there’s a strong chance that high sugar products would not be able to make any nutrition claims.”​

Nestlé supports nutrient profiling, because it believes it would enable the trade to promote products on the basis of their nutritional content. However, Wood said the continued uncertainty over which claims could be made, and whether they could be made at all, could prove an obstacle to industry innovation.

And he said it was “disappointing”​ that the nutrient profiling models did not favour confectionery, preventing claims surrounding cocoa content in the case of chocolate, for example.

Nestlé would join other processors in lobbying for the retention of nutrient profiling through EU chocolate, biscuits and confectionery trade body Caobisco, said Wood.

The position of Which?​

Consumer group Which? meanwhile also reacted in opposition to the deletion of nutrient profiling, for different reasons. It argues that a vote against it would mean products such as doughnuts, chocolate milkshakes and pork sausages could make claims. “When foods like jam doughnuts can make health claims, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board,” ​said Which? chief executive Peter Vickery-Smith.

“Ditching nutrient profiles is like throwing the baby out with the bath water as it paves the way for all manner of unhealthy foods to claim to have health benefits. The only way to address this is to keep nutrient profiles, but with more scientifically robust criteria to ensure consumers aren’t misled by foods making spurious health claims.”​

Which? and the Danish Consumer Council is leading calls for the European Commission, Member States and MEPs to back nutrient profiling.