The Nutri-Score 2024 Update: Impact on Consumer Health and Product Transparency

2024-01-01 12:18:14

Thibaud Hue // Photo credit: Mathieu Thomasset / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 1:18 p.m., January 1, 2024

The Nutri-Score is getting a small update as we move into 2024. As of this Monday, the allocation of letters which indicate to consumers the overall nutritional quality of many products is changing. Faced with this, some disadvantaged manufacturers prefer to remove it from their products.

These are little letters that consumers are paying more and more attention to, and which help us understand the impact of what we eat. Sometimes criticized, the Nutri-Score ranking which indicates to the consumer the overall nutritional quality of certain products, is revised from this Monday.

A welcome update

Objective of this update: to be as close as possible to nutritional recommendations and what we know today regarding the impact of food on our health. Certain products will therefore move up in the ranking with better grades such as vegetable oils, olive oil or even rapeseed oil.

But others will lose points, like sugary products, for example. Many breakfast cereals will drop from the letter A to C. Same thing for certain milk drinks rich in sugars, such as flavored yogurts which go from B to D. So, to avoid a discount, certain brands, like Bjorg, have removed the Nutri-score from their packaging.

Brands that are resisting

“There is strong opposition, particularly from manufacturers who have a portfolio of very fatty, very sweet, and very salty products,” denounces Mathilde Touvier, who heads the nutritional epidemiology research team at Inserm at the origin of Nutri-Score. “What we are denouncing is an approach like that of Bjorg which is still very non-transparent. It is really a step backwards for consumer information,” she judges.

And other big brands are still resisting, like Coca-Cola Pepsi or Ferrero. So, the scientist wants to make Nutri-Score mandatory on all packaging in Europe.

1704111948
#NutriScore #ranking #modernized #disadvantaged #manufacturers #abandoning