Campaigns ‘lack scientific evidence and could confuse consumers’
Campaigns against sugar lack the science to back the extreme messages they use to promote their agenda and could confuse consumers, claimed the Food and Drink Federation’s (FDF) director general.
Melanie Leech told Food Manufacture’s Business Leaders’ Forum on January 21 she was concerned and upset that AoS had dubbed “sugar as the new tobacco” and it could prove detrimental to consumers’ food choices.
“The conversation should be around what science suggests and what we need to understand from the science to have that conversation.”
She said the AoS campaign, which has been the subject of media-hype, could even lead to consumers abstaining from fruit, for fear of its sugar content.
“I think it completely messes consumers’ heads up, because how do they navigate through that conversation? They don’t all know where sugar has come from – is it fruit, fruit juice or added sugar? It all gets terribly messed-up.”
The FDF also slammed a Channel 4 programme on sugar as highly misleading.