Supermarkets join hands to promote ‘Traffic Light Labeling’

Australia, October 1: Australia's supermarket giants - Woolworths, Coles and Franklins – have teamed-up with Australian Food and Grocery Council in a bid to promote a more transparent and meaningful system of nutrition labeling.

Developed in consultation with dietitians and health experts, the new system, called the Daily Intake Guide, will help consumers better understand what’s in a serve of a particular product and how it contributes to their daily diet.

To feature on the front-of-pack, the labeling will mimic the 'traffic light' system and will illustrate low, medium and high levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and sodium by a green, amber or red rating.

Under the terms of the joint venture, supermarkets will now stock products that will carry the Daily Intake Guide labeling, while the complete roll-out of the new labeling initiative is expected to take up to two years.

Also, supermarkets will be working with governments and health professionals to provide shoppers with a practical guide on how to use this information.

In a recent survey commissioned by the consumer advocacy group, Choice, in collaboration with other health groups, researchers questioned 800 shoppers from Sydney and Newcastle. Results revealed that while 64 percent consumers could understand and accurately interpret the conventional industry preferred nutrition labels, nearly 81 percent could correctly do so using the new traffic light labeling.

Moreover, those in the lower income groups (already known to have highest rates of obesity) were six times less likely to understand the conventional labels compared to when they were shown the traffic light labeling.

"The Daily Intake Guide makes it easier for consumers to interpret this information to meet their own needs. Our members are aiming to apply this labeling across a wide range of food and beverage products available in the supermarket," Australian National Retailers Association CEO, Margy Osmond, said.

Though "traffic light labeling is an over simplistic approach to the very important issue of food labeling," a critic said, "it fails to take into account all nutritional attributes of a food within the context of a balanced diet."