In a major win for Australian consumers, a new star rating system for food nutrition was been approved by the nation’s food and health ministers in Sydney last Friday.
Consumer groups have been campaigning for more informative front of pack labelling for many years. For consumers who responded to CFA’s recent survey, food and food labelling was rated as one of the two or three issue of highest concern,
An effective “traffic light” labelling system has operated in the UK for many years. Traffic light labels make it easy at a glance to see whether a food has too much of an something you want to avoid.
The new star rating system doesn’t go quite that far. But it’s a big step in the right direction, and the organisations working on the proposal deserve congratulations – CHOICE in particular.
CFA member CHOICE was part of the committee that developed the health star rating system, along with representatives of government, industry and the public health groups. CHOICE’s Chair Jenni Mack led the group that developed the implementation framework. CHOICE has this to say about the new scheme:
The main features of the new front-of-pack labelling scheme are a star rating and information about key nutrients. The star rating ranges from a half star to five stars (the more stars the better) and is determined by a calculation that considers the good and bad nutritional aspects of the food, providing an objective indication of how healthy the food is.
Nutrient information focuses on what most consumers want to know: sodium, saturated fat, sugars and kilojoules. The information will sit underneath the star rating and be presented either per 100g/mL of the product, or per pack where the product is designed to be consumed in one go.
Importantly, the health star rating will help consumers make healthier choices at-a-glance, while having key nutrient information up-front will provide additional details that will help inform decisions.
The new front-of-pack labelling scheme will be implemented on a voluntary basis initially. CHOICE will work with industry and public health experts over the next year on a code to guide implementation. Companies then have a year to roll out the labelling. If they fail to do so, food and health ministers say implementation will become mandatory.