IRISH FOOD manufacturers are to press ahead with putting new information about nutritional content on all their main products, despite doubts about its value in fighting obesity and other food-related health problems.
By the end of this year, most of the top-selling brands will carry standardised labels detailing their calorie, sugar, fat, saturates and salt content, according to Food and Drink Industry Ireland (FDII). At present, fewer than half the top 100 brands carry this information.
The change is being made in advance of new EU regulations on the provision of front-of-pack nutrition information, which are unlikely to come into force for several years.
FDII yesterday published research that appears to show Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling enjoys widespread public support. Three-quarters of consumers said they found the information on GDA labels easy to support and 88 per cent described it as useful.
A similar proportion felt GDA labelling helped them compare products to decide on the healthiest choice and 81 per cent said they would like to see such labels on more products.
GDAs tell how much of the five main nutrients a food contains and express this as a percentage of daily requirements. Critics say information in this form is hard for a shopper to understand quickly and advocate instead a "traffic-light" system that uses red labels to indicate where the content of a particular nutrient is too high.
While the debate about food labelling has raged throughout the rest of Europe, the Irish authorities have adopted a wait-and-see approach to developments in Britain and the EU, leaving the industry free to put forward its own proposals.
"It was clear that we had to do something. There was a degree of sitting on the fence by the authorities," says Bev Postma, chairwoman of FDII's corporate affairs division.
She described the co-operation between rival food companies on the issue as unprecedented and pointed out that the European Parliament took three years to debate the issue. "It shows that self-regulation and voluntary management work far better than the big stick."
Ms Postma admits the agreed form of label represents a compromise that does not provide "at a glance" information for consumers.
"It's easy to pick holes in it and it's far from perfect, but we feel it's the best compromise."
She maintains that traffic-light labels run the risk of over-simplification. "People will always opt for what appears to be the simpler solution but that's not always the best food choice."
Dr Louise Sullivan, a nutritionist with FDII, points out that foods such as cheese and ordinary milk attract a red light under the traffic light system. "We need to be encouraging people to eat dairy. Putting a red light on it won't help."
A Food Safety Authority of Ireland spokesman confirmed that it had not supported any particular form of labelling, but said whatever was used had to be informative and consistent.
The absence of Government action has left the industry free to determine the form of the labelling, which is based on an average adult's GDA requirements, even where the product is aimed at children.
In Britain, the National Heart Forum has criticised the GDA system for using industry-defined GDAs that are at variance with expert reports.
FDII has launched an information booklet on GDAs, copies of which are available from www.fdii.ie/gda.