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Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach

The implementation of mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling is currently being discussed in the European Union (EU). The Nutri-Score (NS) was developed in France to empower consumers to make informed and healthier food choices. Based on strong evidence of its efficacy in supporting healthy cho...

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Autores principales: Hafner, Edvina, Pravst, Igor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34441467
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10081689
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author Hafner, Edvina
Pravst, Igor
author_facet Hafner, Edvina
Pravst, Igor
author_sort Hafner, Edvina
collection PubMed
description The implementation of mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling is currently being discussed in the European Union (EU). The Nutri-Score (NS) was developed in France to empower consumers to make informed and healthier food choices. Based on strong evidence of its efficacy in supporting healthy choices, it has already been implemented for voluntary use in some EU member states, making it relevant to developing a harmonised EU scheme. This study aimed to evaluate the NS’s discriminating ability on products available in the food supply and compare it with Slovenian national nutritional recommendations based on an adapted WHO Europe (WHOE) profile. The innovative approach of the study is that we used sale-weighting to address the public health importance of available foods, with consideration of market share. We profiled 15,822 products available in the Slovenian food supply in 2017. The NS had a high ability to discriminate food products based on nutritional composition. Products that are generally encouraged in dietary recommendations (fruits, vegetables, cereals) had, in most cases, better NS grades than less favourable products (confectionery, snack foods, added fats), which is also in line with the national nutrition policy programme. The discriminating ability of the model was also shown within food (sub)categories (e.g., plain and flavoured yoghurt). Sale-weighting showed that offerings do not always reflect sales. Major differences between offerings and sales were observed for beverages, dairy, fruits/vegetables, and edible oils/emulsions. Additionally, sale-weighted distribution tended towards less favourable nutritional composition, particularly in categories with overall smaller offerings of products with favourable composition. The NS showed moderate agreement with the WHOE profile (κ = 0.57); differences were particularly observed in flavoured yoghurts, juices, cooking oils, and cheeses. Modelling the operation of the NS with representative real-life food samples provided insight valuable for developing and implementing harmonised mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling in Europe.
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spelling pubmed-83926702021-08-28 Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach Hafner, Edvina Pravst, Igor Foods Article The implementation of mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling is currently being discussed in the European Union (EU). The Nutri-Score (NS) was developed in France to empower consumers to make informed and healthier food choices. Based on strong evidence of its efficacy in supporting healthy choices, it has already been implemented for voluntary use in some EU member states, making it relevant to developing a harmonised EU scheme. This study aimed to evaluate the NS’s discriminating ability on products available in the food supply and compare it with Slovenian national nutritional recommendations based on an adapted WHO Europe (WHOE) profile. The innovative approach of the study is that we used sale-weighting to address the public health importance of available foods, with consideration of market share. We profiled 15,822 products available in the Slovenian food supply in 2017. The NS had a high ability to discriminate food products based on nutritional composition. Products that are generally encouraged in dietary recommendations (fruits, vegetables, cereals) had, in most cases, better NS grades than less favourable products (confectionery, snack foods, added fats), which is also in line with the national nutrition policy programme. The discriminating ability of the model was also shown within food (sub)categories (e.g., plain and flavoured yoghurt). Sale-weighting showed that offerings do not always reflect sales. Major differences between offerings and sales were observed for beverages, dairy, fruits/vegetables, and edible oils/emulsions. Additionally, sale-weighted distribution tended towards less favourable nutritional composition, particularly in categories with overall smaller offerings of products with favourable composition. The NS showed moderate agreement with the WHOE profile (κ = 0.57); differences were particularly observed in flavoured yoghurts, juices, cooking oils, and cheeses. Modelling the operation of the NS with representative real-life food samples provided insight valuable for developing and implementing harmonised mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling in Europe. MDPI 2021-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8392670/ /pubmed/34441467 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10081689 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hafner, Edvina
Pravst, Igor
Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title_full Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title_fullStr Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title_short Evaluation of the Ability of Nutri-Score to Discriminate the Nutritional Quality of Prepacked Foods Using a Sale-Weighting Approach
title_sort evaluation of the ability of nutri-score to discriminate the nutritional quality of prepacked foods using a sale-weighting approach
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8392670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34441467
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10081689
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