Regulating health claims on food labels using nutrient profiling: what will the proposed standard mean in the Australian supermarket?

Abstract

Objective: Proposed Australian regulation of claims on food labels includes requirements for products carrying a health claim to meet nutrient profiling criteria. This would not apply to nutrition content claims. The present study investigated the number and healthiness of products carrying claims and the impact of the proposed regulation. Design: Observational survey of claims on food packages across three categories: non-alcoholic beverages, breakfast cereals and cereal bars. Nutrient profiling was applied to products carrying claims to determine their eligibility to carry health claims under the proposed regulation. Setting: Three large metropolitan stores from the three major supermarket chains in Sydney, Australia were surveyed in August 2011. Subjects: All claims on 1028 products were recorded. Nutrition composition and ingredients were collected from the packaging, enabling nutrient profiling. The proportion of products in each category carrying claims and the proportion of these that did not meet the nutrient profiling criteria were calculated. Results: Two-thirds of products in the three categories (ranging from 18 to 78 %) carried at least one claim. Of those carrying health claims, 31 % did not meet the nutrient profiling criteria. These would be ineligible to carry these claims under the proposed regulation. Additionally, 29 % of products carrying nutrition content claims did not meet the nutrient profiling criteria. Conclusions: The number of products carrying nutrition content claims that did not meet the nutrient profiling criteria suggests that comprehensive regulation is warranted. Promotion of unhealthy foods using claims is potentially misleading for consumers and hinders their ability to select healthier foods. Implementation of the proposed regulation represents an improvement to current practice.

Nutrient profile of 23 596 packaged supermarket foods and non-alcoholic beverages in Australia and New Zealand

“…Therefore, consumer food choices and the nutritional composition of processed foods have substantial potential to influence dietary intakes. Effective front-of-pack nutrition labelling has been identified as a potentially cost-effective strategy to improve population diets (6) and health claims, which are present on substantial numbers of packaged, processed food products in New Zealand (7) and Australia (8) , increase consumers' perceptions of the healthiness of packaged and processed foods (9,10) . Nutrient profile models can be used to classify foods as 'healthy' and 'less healthy' based on their nutritional content (11) .…”

Investigating fruit and vegetable claims on Australian food packages

“…This means that products can carry claims about fruit and vegetables, despite being less healthy and overemphasising their nutritional benefit as a source of fruit and/or vegetables. Previous Australian research has been conducted to investigate the extent of food products carrying health or nutrition claims in certain food categories (13,22,23) . ‡Some products carried more than one type of claim, therefore total is not an addition of each claim type.…”

Protocol for a Randomized Trial Assessing Consumer Evaluations of Pre-Packaged Foods that Systematically Vary by Nutrition Information and Product Attributes

“…Many countries also now require the NIP to be provided whenever a general or higher level health claim is made on a product [4]. Studies conducted across numerous countries (e.g., the USA, the UK, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands) have found no difference [12][13][14] or only marginal differences [15,16] in the overall healthiness of foods featuring a health claim compared to similar foods that do not feature a health claim.…”