"label" news and stories

The "traffic-light" nutrition labels unveiled by the British Food Standards agency may not be popular with the food manufacturers and supermarkets, who are uncomfortable with the black and white (or red, yellow/orange and green) separation of "good" and "bad" foods, but consumers love them. The labeling system uses the three traffic light colors to distinguish between high, medium and low levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in food. The labels are very simple in design and it is easy to tell at a glance what the nutritional profile of a food is.

Out of all the supporters the system, parents are some of the biggest fans. Almost 80% of all parents would prefer if food manufacturers used the "traffic light" labels. They take very little time to read and, unlike the more detailed labels that use the Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) system, no "real world" translation of the information presented is necessary. On top of that, even small children can get the hang of the color-coded system very quickly, which helps to teach them about nutrition, as well as to make taking them along to the store much easier.

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Energy Fiend has a great caffeine content database that can give you the exact amount of caffeine in just about any drink you could want to know about. It is a great resource because, although drinks containing caffeine make it clear in the ingredients list, they don't list the actual amount of caffeine that they contain. Coca-Cola, perhaps taking a cue from E.F. is hoping to make getting this information easier for consumers by adding labels to all of their products indicating their exact caffeine content.

Such labels are already found on Enviga (8.33 mg/oz.) and Full Throttle (8.81 mg/oz.) and Coca-Cola Classic (2.83mg/oz.) cans will have it by May, with the rest of the beverage lineup - including Diet Coke (3.75mg/oz.) to follow over the rest of the year, though the labels will not be put onto the bottles and cans of Coca-Cola products sold outside of the US.

For comparison, drip coffee (black) has 18.13mg caffeine/oz., Red Bull has 9.64mg/oz. and regular black tea has 5.88mg/oz.

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Since excluding imported organic products from using the word "organic" is probably not something that is going to happen in the UK any time soon, farmers are still looking for ways to strengthen their appeal with consumers and the position of their products on supermarket shelves. They are now proposing that the country of origin be clearly labeled on all products. Currently, all foods processed in the UK can claim to be "made in the UK," but this labeling scheme would have the country that the ingredients were sourced from identified.

The real motivation behind it is that foods sourced from elsewhere have less traceability than UK-based products, as manufacturing and processing standards may be lower elsewhere. A move like this would potentially increase the trust that consumers have in UK-made products, where the processing standards are known, and as a result, support UK-based farmers.

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There are federal regulations in place that dictate how terms like "fat free," "low fat," "reduced fat" and "light," among others, can be used with regard to food. Fat free foods, for example, must contain less than .5 grams of fat per serving. It may seem like there is enough definition in this area of food labeling already, but a new label is catching on rapidly: the "lean" label.

For a long time, the "lean" label has been applied only to USDA certified meats that have less than 8 grams of total fat per serving, and no more than 3.5 mg of saturated fats. A recent ruling change means that the term can now be applied to packaged foods, putting it in direct competition with "fat free" and other existing labels for the consumer's attention at the grocery store.

Do consumers really need another way to describe the fat content of, say, frozen pizza? It would probably be too much to as that they just start printing the fat content right on the front of the box.

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The words "all natural" on the packaging of Capri Sun juice drinks have prompted a Florida woman to file a lawsuit against Kraft Foods, Inc., the drink's producer, the Associated Press reported. Assisted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Linda Rex of Boynton Beach, Fla., claims that the inclusion of high fructose corn syrup is what makes the drink in the little silver pouch less than "all natural." You might remember the CSPI from when they filed and then withdrew lawsuits against Kentucky Fried Chicken over trans-fat use last year, or for their similar actions against Starbucks. A recent press release from CSPI points out that the organization has also challenged 7UP's use of the word "natural." A statement from Kraft says that the "all natural" label was already on the way out and will soon be replaced with packaging that claims "no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives,'' the AP reported. CSPI's always-witty executive director Michael Jacobson, coiner of phrases such as "venti-sized health problems" and "Kentucky Fried coronary," said HCFS "would more accurately be called 'Fresh from the Factory.'"