Foodlaw-Reading Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Food Law News - EU - 2021

BEUC News Item, 15 February 2021

NUTRITION LABELLING - Pro-Nutri-Score countries join forces to step up label roll-out

The seven European countries that have endorsed the Nutri-Score label want to see it displayed on more products. Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland1 announced last week Friday that they are joining forces to help more companies and retailers to adopt the front-of-pack nutrition label.

On the practical level, the cooperation will take place in two different bodies:

• Up to two representatives per country will sit in a ‘Steering Committee’ and work towards more products displaying the Nutri-Score.
• The ‘Scientific committee’ will be tasked with considering scientific questions and potential adaptations of the Nutri-Score.

BEUC welcomes the initiative to help a wider number of consumers to benefit from the Nutri-Score. In parallel, BEUC keeps advocating for Nutri-Score to become the mandatory EU-wide front-of-pack label. To date, Nutri-Score has been acknowledged as the most effective label to help consumers make healthier choices in the supermarket.

The announcement comes along with new data on the Nutri-Score take-up in some of the participating countries. Since it was introduced in Germany in November 2020, 116 companies have already registered to use the nutritional label. In France, the number of food companies who committed to rolling out Nutri-Score rose by about 20% over the last seven months (from 415 in July 2020 to about 500 in February 2021). Nearly 94% of French consumers are in favour of Nutri-Score and a similar proportion would like to see it become mandatory.