Italy will fight a possible EU food traffic light labelling system, said the country’s minister of agriculture, Maurizio Martina.
"We will write again to the European Commission in the next few hours to intervene to stop the spread of an element which would be so market distorting," he told reporters, according to Ansa.
His reaction came after six food-industry multinationals, including Coca-Cola, Mars, and Unilever, came out in favour of such a system.
The traffic light system, originally introduced in the UK on a voluntary basis, is designed to help consumers make healthy choices, by labelling food items red, amber or green according to their fat, salt and sugar contents.
Martina recalled that last year, along with 15 European countries, Italy opposed the initiative because it “causes economic damage and image to our products, has no benefit for consumers and does not promote an even more balanced and a healthy diet, classifying foods with questionable and approximate parameters”.
According to the minister, “it is not acceptable that PDO and PGI quality products can be branded with a red light, as happens with other foods that are part of the Mediterranean diet, such as fish and olive oil, while soft drinks without sugar obtained the green light''.
For its part, the EU food industry said it will look at the nutrition label proposal of the multinationals in detail.
© 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
