A number of leading UK food manufacturers have agreed to follow the same nutritional label on products in order to support a government scheme aimed at tackling obesity and poor dietary habits.
Food companies such as Mars UK, Nestle UK, PepsiCo UK and Premier Foods have all combined with food retailers Tesco, Wal-Mart’s Asda, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison to implement the consistent label.
The UK’s Department of Health said on Wednesday labels would combine both traffic light colour-coding and nutritional information on how much fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories are in food products.
The move is aimed at reducing the long term cost on the NHS, and finds it’s support growing as the number of UK businesses using the new label stands at 60%.
Public health minister Anna Soubry said: “By having all major retailers and manufacturers signed up to the consistent label, we will all be able to see at a glance what is in our food.”
The new labelling should start appearing over the next few months, with the majority of products made or sold by participating companies re-labelled by the end of next year.
