Reuters: Regulatory News: UK food producers, grocers sign up to healthy label scheme

Reuters: Regulatory News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UK food producers, grocers sign up to healthy label scheme Jun 18th 2013, 23:01 LONDON, June 19 | Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:01pm EDT LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Britain's major food manufacturers and retailers have agreed to follow the same system of nutritional labelling as part of a government initiative to tackle obesity and poor diet and ease the financial burden on health services. The UK's Department of Health said on Wednesday labels would combine both traffic light colour-coding and nutritional information on how much fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories are in food products. Major retailers in the past used different systems of labelling which health campaigners said led to confusion and mixed messages. With obesity and poor diet costing Britain's national health service (NHS) billions of pounds every year the government wants consumers to better understand the levels of nutrients in packaged food. Mars UK, Nestle UK, PepsiCo UK and Premier Foods along with major grocers, including market leader Tesco, Wal-Mart's Asda, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison, have all agreed to use the consistent label. Businesses already signed up to using the new label account for more than 60 percent of the food that is sold in Britain. "By having all major retailers and manufacturers signed up to the consistent label, we will all be able to see at a glance what is in our food," said public health minister Anna Soubry.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions