Graphical Nutritional Labelling: The Need for Consumer Research

Providing interpretative or graphical nutrition information on food labels could help consumers understand more about the nutritional content of foods and facilitate easier food choices. The EC Nutritional Labelling Directive (1990) allows for the future development of EC formats for graphic nutritional labelling – and the Government′s Food Advisory Committee has recently sought the views of interested parties on possible schemes. There has been considerable discussion on the relative merits of different interpretative schemes but this has tended to focus on scientific and legislative concerns with accuracy, rather than the needs of consumers. Argues that, to determine both the numerical basis of graphical information (the criteria) and the method in which it is conveyed (the format), further consumer research is necessary.