A petition to make Nutri-Score compulsory throughout the European Union

In France, 25% of food products have the Nutri-Score logo, this label which classifies them from A to E and from green to red according to their nutritional quality. With Belgium, France is ahead of its European neighbors in this regard. MEPs want to go further. Thus, they support a European citizens’ initiative petition to make the Nutri-Score compulsory throughout the Union. Today it is only optional.

To convince citizens, a handful of MEPs visited a Belgian supermarket. For the European Commission to launch the legislative process, the petition must collect one million signatures before May 8, 2020, and in at least seven Member States. The petition has been posted on his website.

Encourage businesses to do better

In addition to better informing consumers about the nutritional values ​​of the product they are about to buy, the Nutri-Score can push brands to do better. If the logo becomes mandatory, “it will encourage companies to change category by putting less salt, less sugar or less fat”, explains Monique Goyens, director general of the European Consumers’ Bureau, which brings together 43 national associations. Recently, the distributor Casino announced that it will affix the Nutri-Score logo to all its own brand products, ie 3,000 references. Ditto for Nestlé, which decided to adopt the logo after years of refusal.

Years of arm wrestling

For the moment, European regulations prohibit Member States from making any nutritional information system mandatory. In France, the Nutri-Score was officially adopted in 2017, followed by Spain, Belgium and Germany. Although optional, it took years of tussle and negotiation before it could hit supermarket shelves. Health Minister Marisol Touraine, under the presidency of François Hollande, was the first to want to enshrine it in law. It came up against many pressures, in particular from lobbies, according to Professor Serge Herchberg, epidemiologist and inventor of Nutri-Score.