After previously withholding from including the voluntary traffic light labelling on its products, Kellogg’s has announced that from January 2019, it plans to do so for a range of its cereal products.
The traffic light scheme was launched in 2013 by the UK government in order to aid consumers in making healthier lifestyle choices when it comes to food. It consists of an at-a-glance infographic of red, amber and green to give consumers insight into the fat, salt and sugar content of a food product.
Kellogg’s stated that it is now partaking in the optional labelling due to consumer behaviour and opinion.
The snacking and cereal manufacturer said, “We are changing because the people who buy our food told us we should. Following our announcement late last year to overhaul our cereals in the UK, we decided to look again at labelling.”
Kellogg’s has decided to not implement the labelling system on its multilingual versions of the cereals, as the traffic light system is not as well known outside of its UK consumer base.
Under EU rules, the traffic light labelling is voluntary. Consumer organisation Which? has called on the UK government to ensure food labelling guidelines are laid out in time for when Brexit is finalised, due to the lack of a universal system for food labelling.
Improved traceability in labelling will also be crucial post-Brexit, experts say.
Oli Morton, Kellogg’s UK managing director said: “Put simply, [consumers] said we should change and move to a full-colour solution as they want help making healthy decisions. We’ve listened and now we’re acting.”
In light of concerns surrounding labelling post-Brexit, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has released a guideline for UK food businesses which details how “certain directly applicable EU legislation will be converted into UK law”.
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