UFC-Que Choisir-a consumer association founded in France in 1951, with 160 offices across the country-has published two reports demonstrating both the benefit of NutriScore for local, and traditional, products and the improvement in nutritional quality of products it stimulates.
1) NutriScore, full marks to traditional and local products
The report published on May 10, 2022 by UFC-Que Choisir on 588 references covering 310 local and traditional food products from the 13 French regions shows that the vast majority of them (62 percent) have favorable NutriScore scores (A, B and C). (1) In most cases, their consumption is encouraged precisely because of their better nutritional quality. In fact, 121 local and traditional foods with A and B scores are recorded, as well as olive oils (C score, 7 products) that the NutriScore recommends over other fats. Reconfirming the falsity of the theorems of Coldiretti and the Italian politicians on its leash. (2)
(see cover image)
Traditional balanced foods (NutriScore A and B scores) include:
- 30 local dishes, includinghochepot flamand (pork, beef and egg-goat stew), potée d’Auvergne (cabbage soup with sausage and bacon), cassoulet de Castelnaudary (bean and sausage casserole),
- meat and poultry (34 products), including Camargue AOC bull, Limousin Label Rouge veal, Bigorre AOC black pig, and Mont-Saint-Michel AOC salt meadow lamb,
- numerous vegetables, fruits, and legumes (37 products) such as endive du Nord, Nantaise lamb’s lettuce PGI, Roussillon red apricot PDO, Quercy melon PGI, Puy green lentils PDO, and Vendée beans PGI. (3)
2) Nutritional quality of food improves (only) thanks to NutriScore
The favorable impact of the NutriScore on the nutritional quality of food products finds evidence in the latest UFC-Que Choisir report, released on April 12, 2023. (4) Association researchers have:
- identified seven categories of foods with significant levels of saturated fat, sugar or salt, where manufacturers have ample room to reformulate their recipes,
- compared the supply of these food categories in the French market between 2015 and 2022 to assess the overall changes in NutriScore scores,
- evaluated the evolution of nutritional profiles on a basket of 169,000 food items distributed in France and surveyed in UFC-Que Choisir’s ‘QuelProduit’ app.
2.1) Cereal bars, breads and rusks, breakfast cereals
An extraordinary improvement in the nutritional quality of foods on the shelf in the French market was observed between 2015 and 2022 on three product categories where the NutriScore is most frequently displayed:
- cereal-based bars. The percentage of products with NutriScore A, B and C scores doubled (from 25% to 49%),
- bread, rusks, and baked goods. In this category the top scores, A and B, reached almost two-thirds of the labels reporting the NutriScore (40% to 62%),
- breakfast cereal. In just 7 years, between 2015 and 2022, the share of products with NutriScore A and B increased almost fivefold (from 8% to 38%).
Analysis of data collected through the ‘QuelProduit’ app shows significant progress, in these three categories, between 2020 and 2022. With major reductions in saturated fat (-44%) and sugar (-17%), salt (-8%), and increased fiber (+9%).
2.2) Confectionery and condiments, little NutriScore and poor progress
The UFC-Que Choisir survey also demonstrates the correlation between the use of the NutriScore and improved nutritional quality of foods with a reverse test. The four food categories where the NutriScore is virtually absent are populated with junk food(malbouffe, or junk-food), with minimal changes between 2015 and 2022:
- cookies and cakes maintain the worst NutriScore scores, E and D, in 89 percent of references (up from 97 percent in 2015),
- chocolate bars and snacks remain at the bottom of the list, with 90 percent scoring E and D (up from 99 percent in 2015). With a glimmer of light, NutriScore C, appeared on 7% of the products,
- ice creams and sorbets show a slight improvement, with ‘class C’ rising from 38 percent to 44 percent over the 2015-2022 period and a corresponding reduction, from 62 percent to 52 percent, in the worst scores (D,E),
- condiment sauces remain stable, and there is even an increase in products with the worst overall score, E, from 25 to 28 percent.
3) The real enemies of NutriScore (and public health).
The real enemies of the NutriScore are the junk food corporations, which contribute substantially to the epidemic of obesity, overweight, and incurable, serious, and chronic diseases (NCDs, Non-Communicable Diseases). Externalizing onto public health the costs of their irresponsible conduct of predatory production and marketing (UNICEF, 2019) of junk-food (5,6).
The UFC-Que Choisir analysis-as an illustration of the above-illustrates the names of the market leaders in France, in the four categories above (see section 2.2), that stand against the NutriScore:
- Bahlsen, Ferrero (Nutella, Kinder, Delacre brands), Mondelez (Cadbury, Lu, Milka, Oreo, Pepito, Suchard…), Yildiz Holding (BN) in the cookies and confectionery sectors (where 83% of brands oppose the NutriScore),
- General Mills (Häagen-Dazs), Ferrero (Kinder), Mars Inc. (Bounty, Mars, Snickers), Mondelez (Milka, Oreo), Unilever (Carte d’Or, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum) in the ice cream sector (where 99 percent of the brands oppose the NutriScore),
- Unilever (Amora, Maille), Kraft-Heinz (Heinz, Benedicta), in the condiment sector (where 90 percent of brands hide nutritional profiles.
4) NutriScore, public health and consumer education.
NutriScore is an urgently needed public health tool for the dual purpose of helping:
- consumers, to understand the role of foods as part of a balanced Mediterranean diet, as also demonstrated in Italy, (7)
- supply chain operators (industry, distribution) to improve the nutritional quality of food available on the market.
5) Interim Conclusions
The voluntariness of the NutriScore is today the only obstacle to achieving these goals, since today in France only 1% of products with the worst score (E) show it on the label.
‘Junk food companies stubbornly refuse to report it on their products, and this opacity anesthetizes any incentive to lighten recipes. Only the requirement to display the NutriScore on the label will push junk food manufacturers to improve their recipes!’ (UFC-Que Choisir).
Let us open our eyes and call on all citizens and consumers to demand transparency on nutrition profiles on food labels, claim the right to health and informed consumption choices! (8)
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Action UFC-Que Choisir (2022). Enquête de l’UFC-Que Choisir sur les aliments traditionnels https://www.quechoisir.org/action-ufc-que-choisir-enquete-de-l-ufc-que-choisir-sur-les-aliments-traditionnels-le-nutri-score-meilleure-illustration-de-la-qualite-nutritionnelle-de-notre-patrimoine-culinaire-n100652/
(2) Dario Dongo. NutriScore, Professor Serge Hercberg corrects Italian minister’s fake news. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 8.3.22
(3) The 73 local and traditional foods that scored a NutriScore C, in the UFC-Que Choisir survey recalled in footnote 1, include Alsatian spaetzle pasta, parsley ham from Burgundy, the far breton (a flan similar to custard) and the cancoillotte de Franche Comté (a cream cheese)
(4) UFC-Que Choisir, Service des études et du lobbying (2023). L’efficacité du NutriScore à améliorer les recettes bridée par son application volontaire https://www.quechoisir.org/action-ufc-que-choisir-nutri-score-seule-une-obligation-de-l-afficher-poussera-les-industriels-de-la-malbouffe-a-ameliorer-leurs-recettes-n107018/?dl=115766
(5) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Climate, predatory marketing, and children’s health. Unicef Report. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 21.2.20
(6) Dario Dongo. EUPHA, stop junk food marketing aimed at children and adolescents. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 25.3.23
(7) Dario Dongo, Andrea Adelmo Della Penna. Italian scientific study confirms the effectiveness of NutriScore. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 7.1.23
(8) Dario Dongo. EU public health, EUPHA, points to NutriScore as best option of FoPNL. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 20.3.23
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
