Auchan Italia has been criticised by a number of representatives from the country's food industry for its new campaign, 'La Vita in Blu'.
The initiative, which was launched in October, aims to promote products that the retailer considers as better from a nutritional and health point of view by labelling them with a blue heart.
However, a number of groups have spoken out about the campaign, and a complaint has been filed with Italy's competition authority, according to Corriere della Sera.
Antonio Longo, consumer representative of the European Economic and Social Committee, said that Auchan's La Vita in Blu “risks deceiving those who go shopping for safe and healthy food”.
Meanwhile, Centromarca president Carlo Bordoni described it as an "incomplete and misleading communication, which confuses customers and can lead to a distortion of competition”, and Roberto Moncalvo, chairman of farming association Coldiretti, agreed that it is a "misleading, discriminatory and incomplete" labelling system.
In response, Auchan says that La Vita in Blu is an international programme that aims to guide consumers in choosing the best products for their health.
Carlo Delmenico, the head of Auchan Retail Italia, said that the chosen products “are identified through a method developed and approved by an independent board of internationally-renowned Italian experts”.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
