Belgium, which holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, will hold a scientific symposium on controversial food nutrition labeling in April to “share experiences” on the system and discuss its adoption at EU level with Member States who use nutrition labeling. It plans to restart discussions with opposing member states.
According to the Presidency Program, the aim is to “share experiences from different perspectives on the voluntary front-of-pack labeling systems already in place in some EU countries”.
The symposium, scheduled for April 25, “will be organized at an expert level,” an official from the EU Presidency told Euractic.
Launched in France in 2017, Nutri-Score is a color-coded label ranging from A-green, which indicates “healthiest,” to E-red, which ranks foods according to their calculated nutritional value based on standard serving sizes. It’s a system.
From the end of 2023, a new algorithm will be applied, with stricter parameters for milk and breakfast cereals, and increased points for olive oil and other plant-based fats compared to the previous ranking.
In an action plan to accompany the EU’s flagship food policy strategy, Farm to Fork, the European Commission has announced that nutrition labeling on food will be mandatory across the bloc by the end of 2022.
A 2020 European Commission study found that labels that combine color coding and tiered indicators such as Nutri-Score are the best candidates to inspire an EU-wide model.
But the bill was delayed, along with other initiatives aimed at “facilitating the transition to healthy and sustainable diets,” as stated in the “Farm to Fork” action plan.
European Commission officials said the delay was to avoid too polarizing the debate, as the file will be debated in the European Parliament in late 2022, close to the EU general elections scheduled for June. . Since then, the topic has been off the table.
Belgium’s efforts may bring it back into the spotlight.
Nutri-Score is a highly divisive issue, as the French system is only one of the nutrition labeling systems currently used in Europe. Other examples include the “keyhole” in Scandinavian countries and the “heart mark” in Finland.
Belgium is part of the United Nations Alliance for the Governance of Nutri-Score, which includes five other member states and Switzerland, and is working to make the system compatible with the dietary guidelines of various countries.
Italy, the most vocal opponent of Nutri-Score, is pushing ahead with an alternative plan called “Nutriform batteries.” In the 2020 Agriculture Ministers’ Debate, Roma won the support of six other EU countries.
In November 2022, Italy’s Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida reiterated his distaste for Nutri-Score in his first meeting with EU countries.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
