Entretien : L'industrie alimentaire souhaite un report des règles européennes sur l'étiquetage [en][de] 

"The food and drink industry's voluntary nutrition-labelling scheme provides consumers more fact-based information across the board in a consistent way,"  Sabine Nafziger, director of consumer information, diet and health issues at the food and drinks industry confederation, CIAA, has explained in an interview with EurActiv. 

"So, what is the pressure to have a European level law here and now?" she asks. 

However, the food companies currently committed to introducing the CIAA voluntary labelling scheme  represent only 7% of the total EU market. And it is estimated that half their products, some 3% of all food products marketed in the EU, will bear the labels based on guideline daily amounts, GDAs , by the end of 2007. 

"To be honest, the figure may seem low," acknowledged Nafziger, adding that the CIAA is aiming at 40-50% for 2010. "This is a real challenge for us," she added, as the CIAA has no authority over its members and can only encourage them to introduce the GDA labelling into their products.

"Consumer organisations want a law imposing 'nutrition labelling for all' straight away. Industry wants to do that on a voluntary basis, to give more flexibility to small companies," said Nafzier, adding that the success of the exercise would depend on the market and whether it would deliver. "If the market does not deliver, we have a problem," she admitted. 

CIAA hopes that the Commission proposal for new nutrition labelling rules, currently foreseen for the end of 2007, will take on board the concept of labelling based on GDAs. However "the Commission has postponed the proposal for so long already that it could postpone it for another year, so that we'll have the time to see what our consumer research tells us as there are more products on the market" Nafziger added.

She says that the CIAA recommendation for a common nutrition labelling scheme is the biggest industry outcome of the EU Platform for action on diet, physical activity and health, launched in March 2005 to find ways to fight the European obesity epidemic. 

The CIAA scheme is based on placing GDAs on food packaging, describing how much a specific product represents in terms of daily energy intake. It proposes to have only the energy-label (kilocalories) on the front of packaging. GDAs are derived from the estimated average requirements for energy for men and women aged between 19-50, of normal weight and fitness. There are currently no GDAs for children. 

However, consumer organisations are campaigning in favour of a colour-coded scheme, which aims to provide shoppers with 'at-a-glance' information on the level of fat, sugar and salt in processed food products - red for high, orange/amber for medium and green for low. Industry opposes the addition of such an interpretative element as it believes would be going one step too far by adding a "judgment of value" on the content of nutrients.

As to the effect of nutrition labelling in general on consumer behaviour, Nafziger argued that no labelling alone, without consumer education, can do the job and deliver on obesity. She therefore called for government-led consumer education, in which industry should be given a role. "Food labelling has been mandatory in the United States on 13 nutrients for 15 years. However, the US never invested in consumer education and this is why consumers don't pay attention to them. We can't make the same mistake in Europe." 

To read the full interview with Sabine Nafziger, click here.