The real-life experimentation of four simplified nutritional labels starts on September 26 in four regions. The trial will last 10 weeks.
French people who shop on Mondays might be surprised when they walk into their supermarket. This September 26 marks the start of the experimentation with simplified nutritional labeling. In four regions, the shelves of 60 establishments will be adorned with the different logos in competition. The inhabitants of Île-de-France, Haute-Normandie, Rhône-Alpes or Hauts-de-France will thus participate in the tests. The results are expected in several months.
Improve behavior
To fight against junk food, food packaging must be more readable. This is the observation of the Minister of Health Marisol Touraine. It remains to know the reality behind this hypothesis. This is, among other things, the objective of this experiment “under real purchasing conditions”, which will focus on 1,200 references. At the end of this analysis phase, the most understandable nutritional logo, and which will have the most impact on consumer behavior, will be chosen. But the application will remain on a voluntary basis, thanks to the negotiations of the agro-food industry.
To achieve this choice, the receipts will be scrutinized by the LinkUp agency, which coordinates the research, and the French Food and Health Fund (FFAS), which is the official promoter. The objective is clear: it is to assess how the different labels influence consumption and customer choices. Hence the interest in controlling purchases in 20 supermarkets where no packaging will be changed.
Inform the most disadvantaged
The choice of the four regions owes nothing to chance: favored and severely disadvantaged populations live together there. However, the protocol specifies that low-income households must be widely represented in one out of two cases. In fact, these families are the main victims of the lack of readability of food labels, the lack of information and nutritional imbalances.
The other objective of the tests is to determine which simplified labeling should be recommended by the state. Four systems are in competition. Two express the overall results of the prepared product: Nutriscore, developed by the nutritional epidemiology research team (Inserm), and SENS, submitted by the Federation of Commerce and Distribution. The others focus on the impact of the main nutrients (Nutricouleurs and Nutettrepère). They are derived from systems already in place, for example in the United Kingdom.
Now remains a major doubt, expressed especially on Twitter : will scientific impartiality be applied in these examinations? The French Society of Public Health has issued doubts about it. She says she is “deeply worried about threats to the independence of research and speaks out firmly against any attempt to interfere with any interest in it whatsoever.” The pressure from distributors and manufacturers during the development of the protocol has still not been forgotten. So much so that four members of the scientific committee threw in the towel during the process.
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