European lobby group stresses nutrition in product labelling

Although consumers would like to have nutritional labelling on food products, many do not understand nutritional concepts, making it all the more important for a simple system to inform people whether an item was healthy or not, the deputy director of the European Consumers' Organisation, Willemien Bax, said.

Speaking to The Times, Ms Bax said the problem of obesity, which is plaguing European countries, makes it all the more important for proper labelling.

"We want a simple and eye-catching system that is easy for people to understand. At the moment there are several systems on the market, and it makes it all the more confusing."

She said the organisation -made up of 40 consumer associations from all over Europe - believes labels should include the nutritional information of a number of key ingredients, including sugar, fat, energy, protein, salt, fibre and trans fatty acids, allowing people to make an informed choice.

Ms Bax said research carried out among some 3,000 consumers two years ago found that people are extremely interested in nutrition, with 80 per cent saying they wanted nutritional labelling on products.

But the majority of people have very limited nutritional knowledge and are easily misled by the multitude of claims on different products. She said the BEUC has campaigned on a European level so that any claims that a product is healthy are scientifically substantiated.

A major concern for the BEUC is the fact that one in every five children is obese and last year it campaigned very heavily for the EU to introduce restrictions on adverts of unhealthy food, targeting children between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. in terms of TV advertising.

"Our members have found that the products advertised most are the ones that are bad for your health and research shows this has a lot of impact on diet because children tend to want to eat what they see on television."

However, the campaigning was unsuccessful and industry will only be required to adopt a code of conduct to ensure a more appropriate way of advertising in the case of children.

"We don't like codes; we've never seen one work so far and will continue to lobby for restrictions," she said.

On the other hand, the BEUC was happy that the CE markings on products were being questioned. "Although checks do take place, maybe these are not done as well as they should and we are afraid that consumers might be misled into thinking that a consumer is safe when it is not."

She stressed that it was imperative to have regular checks to ensure that products carrying the CE mark were in fact in line with the established standards, which also made it all the more important to have good standards in the first place.

Ms Bax highlighted the importance of associations that fight for consumers' rights, saying that while these were very strong in the old 15 EU member states, those in the newer countries needed to develop further.

"It is imperative for consumers to have somewhere to go if something goes wrong," she said, adding that at times she felt sorry for consumers who are bombarded with information which they do not have the time to go through before making their choices.

"Consumers tend to assume that whoever is giving them advice is giving them the best advice. They should not do this but check around and obtain information from various sources."

She said the BEUC was campaigning at European level in order to allow groups of consumers who have a similar issue against a company to open a collective court case.

Ms Bax was in Malta to meet the local consumers' association, which is one of the BEUC's members.