Lack of sugar warnings on cereals leads to calls for consistent labelling
New research reveals that cereal manufacturers are deceiving shoppers by using poor nutrition labelling. Action on Sugar urges food and drinks manufacturers to display colour-coded front of pack labelling across all their products immediately.
Campaigners are calling the lack of warnings "scandalous", urging shoppers to avoid brands that are not being clear on levels of sugar in their products.
Twenty five breakfast cereal manufacturers were surveyed, which showed that whilst Bear, Jordans, Kellogg’s and Nestle do use front of pack labelling, they do not use Department of Health’s recommended colour-coding, making it very difficult for consumers to interpret the information and make informed decisions. A further six brands, including Eat Natural, Lizi's, Nature's Path, Paleo Foods Co., Rude Health and Dorset Cereals, contain no front of pack nutrition labelling and some products contain high levels of sugar.
As a result of these findings, Action on Sugar is calling for 'traffic light' nutrition information to be included on the fronts of all food and drink products. The group said that cereal shoppers could save themselves around 45 teaspoons of sugar per month (182g) if appropriate labelling was consistently used.
Campaign director Katharine Jenner said: "Shoppers should be seeing red, and they would be if manufacturers used the correct labels. It's scandalous that certain food manufacturers are still refusing to be transparent when it comes to front of pack nutrition labelling."
Published Tuesday 8 August 2017
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