- Cymraeg
- English
 |
Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal DemocratsRepresenting Aberavon, Bridgend, Gower, Neath, Ogmore, Port Talbot, and Swansea |
 |
Food giants should not jump the lights says candidate
January 5, 2007 8:40 PM
Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly candidate for Gower and Swansea councillor Nick Tregoning has been incensed by the refusal of some food giants - both retailers and manufacturers - to ignore the Food Standards Agency's (FSA) traffic light system for showing the relative healthiness of foods and to go for a less easily understood system of their own devising.
The rival systems exist because of Government determination that retailers and manufacturers should make it a lot easier for consumers to see at a glance which foods are high in fat, salt, sugar, and saturated fat.
"The FSA system uses a simple to understand red/amber/green traffic light system, plus percentages of recommended daily intake, whereas the rival Guideline Daily Allowance (GDA) system dreamed up by the food giants dumps the traffic lights, and goes for the percentages printed on an insipid blue background," said Cllr Tregoning. "Yet independent research shows that 97% of people understand the traffic light concept, and the FSA have discovered that 62% of people misunderstood the GDA label scheme, but only 21% misunderstood the traffic light labels."
"More and more of us are taking a bigger interest in what we eat and drink, hence the increase in demand for local produce markets and farmers markets in and around Gower, as well as the rising sales of organic food," he added. "Most food retailers have signed up to the traffic light scheme, and they deserve full credit for that. However, for the food giants involved in the GDA scheme - like Tesco, Nestle, and Kellogg - to seek to jump the lights in this way is totally out of order. What can they possibly be afraid of? Do they perhaps fear that if they make it too easy for us to work out what's in the food they manufacture and sell, we may stop buying their stuff?"
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats