The UK's consumer watchdog, Which?, has asked for an end to consumer confusion over the differing labeling methods used on food. Many retailers and consumers rejected the Food Standards Agency's traffic light system and introduced their own.By rejecting the FSA's guidelines they are just confusing consumers who want to be able to make healthy food choices. Despite its detractors they report that the traffic Light system is the easiest to understand. Their latest survey found that 97% of the 636 people they asked understood the FSA system with its red, green and amber warnings on levels of sugar, fat and salt.
But just 37% understood Tesco's labeling which uses Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA's) of salt, sugar and fat as a daily percentage. I haven't heard of GDA's before (and don't shop in Tesco) but apparently you need some prior GDA knowledge to understand it. "Clearly they [companies not using the FSA system] feel from a marketing perspective the GDA approach shows their products in a better light," said Sue Davies of Which?
"But we are still hoping that food manufacturers and retailers who are not using this will accept the evidence and change their approach.
"Ultimately if they can't come up with a decent system we would be pushing for legislation in this. This is not just based on research but also on EU and FSA guidelines."
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