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Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database

Summary indicator front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes are gaining momentum. In Europe, an example of such a scheme is Nutri-Score, which was first introduced in France. Supported by additional research, the scheme has the potential to expand into other countries. Such a scenario opens a ser...

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Autores principales: Pivk Kupirovič, Urška, Hristov, Hristo, Hribar, Maša, Lavriša, Živa, Pravst, Igor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32244547
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9040399
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author Pivk Kupirovič, Urška
Hristov, Hristo
Hribar, Maša
Lavriša, Živa
Pravst, Igor
author_facet Pivk Kupirovič, Urška
Hristov, Hristo
Hribar, Maša
Lavriša, Živa
Pravst, Igor
author_sort Pivk Kupirovič, Urška
collection PubMed
description Summary indicator front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes are gaining momentum. In Europe, an example of such a scheme is Nutri-Score, which was first introduced in France. Supported by additional research, the scheme has the potential to expand into other countries. Such a scenario opens a series of questions related to the use of Nutri-Score in the territories with pre-existing food labelling schemes. A key question is whether different nutrition labelling schemes would provide conflicting information for consumers when applied to same foods. The goal of our study was, therefore, to evaluate the alignment of different front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes. The study was conducted using cross-sectional data on the composition of selected categories of prepacked foods with high penetration nutrition/health claims and symbols in the Slovenian food supply. We evaluated a variety of existing front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes: three interpretive nutrition rating systems (Nutri-Score, Health Star Rating (HSR), Traffic light system), four health symbols (Protective Food symbol, Choices, Finnish heart, and Keyhole symbol), and also three nutrient profile models developed for other purposes (Office of Communications (United Kingdom, Ofcom), World Health Organization Regional office for Europe (WHOE) and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)). Overall, our results indicate that interpretive nutrition rating systems (i.e., Nutri-Score) are mostly less strict than the nutrient profiles of tested health symbols. A risk of conflicting information would happen in a scenario where food is eligible to carry a health symbol, but is at the same time rated to have lower nutritional quality by an accompanying interpretive nutrition rating system. When Protective Food symbol and Nutri-Score are used together, this would occur for 5% of foods in our sample. To avoid such risks, schemes for health symbols could be adapted to be stricter than interpretive nutrition rating systems used in the same territory/market, but such adaptations are challenging and should be well planned. While our study showed that, in most cases, Nutri-Score is a less strict model than tested health symbols, the rating-system approach might offer useful support and incentive for food producers towards gradual food reformulation.
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spelling pubmed-72307592020-05-22 Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database Pivk Kupirovič, Urška Hristov, Hristo Hribar, Maša Lavriša, Živa Pravst, Igor Foods Article Summary indicator front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes are gaining momentum. In Europe, an example of such a scheme is Nutri-Score, which was first introduced in France. Supported by additional research, the scheme has the potential to expand into other countries. Such a scenario opens a series of questions related to the use of Nutri-Score in the territories with pre-existing food labelling schemes. A key question is whether different nutrition labelling schemes would provide conflicting information for consumers when applied to same foods. The goal of our study was, therefore, to evaluate the alignment of different front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes. The study was conducted using cross-sectional data on the composition of selected categories of prepacked foods with high penetration nutrition/health claims and symbols in the Slovenian food supply. We evaluated a variety of existing front-of-package nutrition labelling schemes: three interpretive nutrition rating systems (Nutri-Score, Health Star Rating (HSR), Traffic light system), four health symbols (Protective Food symbol, Choices, Finnish heart, and Keyhole symbol), and also three nutrient profile models developed for other purposes (Office of Communications (United Kingdom, Ofcom), World Health Organization Regional office for Europe (WHOE) and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)). Overall, our results indicate that interpretive nutrition rating systems (i.e., Nutri-Score) are mostly less strict than the nutrient profiles of tested health symbols. A risk of conflicting information would happen in a scenario where food is eligible to carry a health symbol, but is at the same time rated to have lower nutritional quality by an accompanying interpretive nutrition rating system. When Protective Food symbol and Nutri-Score are used together, this would occur for 5% of foods in our sample. To avoid such risks, schemes for health symbols could be adapted to be stricter than interpretive nutrition rating systems used in the same territory/market, but such adaptations are challenging and should be well planned. While our study showed that, in most cases, Nutri-Score is a less strict model than tested health symbols, the rating-system approach might offer useful support and incentive for food producers towards gradual food reformulation. MDPI 2020-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC7230759/ /pubmed/32244547 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9040399 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Pivk Kupirovič, Urška
Hristov, Hristo
Hribar, Maša
Lavriša, Živa
Pravst, Igor
Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title_full Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title_fullStr Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title_full_unstemmed Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title_short Facilitating Consumers Choice of Healthier Foods: A Comparison of Different Front-of-Package Labelling Schemes Using Slovenian Food Supply Database
title_sort facilitating consumers choice of healthier foods: a comparison of different front-of-package labelling schemes using slovenian food supply database
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7230759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32244547
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9040399
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