Saint-Maurice (France) (AFP)
For the Nutri-Score, all the indicators are green: this color scale that notes the nutritional quality of industrial foods is increasingly known to consumers and is at the heart of a government plan for nutrition presented Friday.
"The Nutri-Score is emblematic of the nutritional policy that I carry," said Health Minister Agnès Buzyn, presenting the plan at the premises of the health agency Public Health France, near Paris.
This 2019-23 nutrition plan aims to reduce overweight, obesity and undernutrition among French people and to encourage physical activity.
The Nutri-Score is one of the tools: the government wants to "continue its development in France" and convince other European countries to adopt, as Belgium has already done.
Affixed to packaging, this graphic scale combines color codes and letters to classify food products into 5 categories (letters A to E colored from green to red), according to their nutritional qualities.
It allows to compare different versions of the same processed product (ready meals, pizzas, preserves, biscuits, etc.).
Launched two years ago, at the end of October 2017, the Nutri-Score is not mandatory, because of European regulations: manufacturers choose to adopt it or not.
More than 180 manufacturers and distributors have already done so for now, according to the Ministry of Health.
"This project did not generate enthusiasm in its early days, many predicted failure, and the results show that we have moved the lines," said Buzyn.
According to a poll conducted by Public Health France on samples ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 people, 81% of French people have already seen the Nutri-Score or heard of him in May 2019, against 58% in April 2018, before a promotional campaign .
Nearly a quarter (23.6%) of respondents in May 2019 claim that Nutri-Score prompted them to choose a better-rated product than another, compared with less than 14% in April 2018.
- "Consumer plebiscite" -
"This is a plebiscite of the consumer", congratulated one of the fathers of Nutri-Score, the nutritionist Serge Hercberg, according to which its effect is twofold: to guide the choices of the consumer and to incite the industrialists to change the formulas of their products to be better rated.
"It remains to tip the last resistance still felt by a number of operators," he continued.
On Friday, the Carrefour distributor announced that it would put this labeling on 7,000 products of its brand by 2022.
Before that, at the end of June, Nutri-Score won a big symbolic victory: Nestlé announced that it would adopt it for all its products sold in Europe.
In 2017, the Swiss giant was part of a group of six multinationals (with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mars, Mondelez and Unilever) that refused the Nutri-Score.
The first Nestlé products with the Nutri-Score "will arrive in France in 2020" via the brands Nesquik, Mousseline or Herta, said the general manager of Nestlé France, Pierre-Alexandre Teulié, who was part of the industrial invited to the presentation of Friday .
"We could appear as converts of the last hour," he conceded. But for a multinational, to make such a decision takes "the same complexity as at the level of the States", because it is necessary to make agree the national subsidiaries.
At a time when the consumer is more and more concerned about what he eats, the Nutri-Score can even eventually become a marketing argument for groups.
If it spreads widely, "not to have become a problem for brands," predicted Mr. Teulié.
Currently, three-quarters of products with Nutri-Score are processed products, and a quarter of raw products (water, eggs, meat, etc.) according to Oqali, an organization created in 2008 by the Ministries of Agriculture, Health and Consumer Affairs.
24% of the processed foods that use Nutri-Score are prepared meals - this is the largest proportion. The lowest comes from chocolate and chocolate products (2%).
© 2019 AFP