Penetration of nutrition information on food labels across the EU-27 plus Turkey.
OBJECTIVE
The European Union (EU)-funded project Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life (FLABEL) aims to understand how nutrition information on food labels affects consumers' dietary choices and shopping behaviour. The first phase of this study consisted of assessing the penetration of nutrition labelling and related information on various food products in all 27 EU Member States and Turkey.


METHODS
In each country, food products were audited in three different types of retailers to cover as many different products as possible within five food and beverage categories: sweet biscuits, breakfast cereals, pre-packed chilled ready meals, carbonated soft drinks and yoghurts.


RESULTS
More than 37 000 products were audited in a total of 84 retail stores. On average, 85% of the products contained back-of-pack (BOP) nutrition labelling or related information (from 70% in Slovenia to 97% in Ireland), versus 48% for front-of-pack (FOP) information (from 24% in Turkey to 82% in the UK). The most widespread format was the BOP tabular or linear listing of nutrition content. Guideline daily amounts labelling was the most prevalent form of FOP information, showing an average penetration of 25% across all products audited. Among categories, breakfast cereals showed the highest penetration of nutrition-related information, with 94% BOP penetration and 70% FOP penetration.


CONCLUSIONS
Nutrition labelling and related information was found on a large majority of products audited. These findings provide the basis for subsequent phases of FLABEL involving attention, reading, liking, understanding and use by consumers of different nutrition labelling formats.
Storcksdieck genannt Bonsmann
S
S
European Food Information Council, Tassel House, Rue Paul Emile Janson 6, Brussels, Belgium. stefan.storcksdieck@eufic.org
Celemín
L Fernández
LF
Larrañaga
A
A
Egger
S
S
Wills
J M
JM
Hodgkins
C
C
Raats
M M
MM
D005062:European Union; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005502:Food / Q000592:standards*; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000592:standards*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D007494:Ireland; D017524:Slovenia; D014421:Turkey
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