Paris (AFP)

Food, catering and distribution players multiplied initiatives on Tuesday for Nutri-Score's simplified nutritional labeling, at a time when the UFC-Que Choisir criticized the agri-food industry for not to have taken enough of this system that gives the consumer the choice to eat better.

"Two years after its official introduction, the Nutri-Score is present on only 5% of products" sold in supermarkets, believes the consumer association, which requires that it be made mandatory at European level.

Already in place in France since autumn 2017, but optional because of current European regulations, as well as in Belgium and Spain, this labeling system gives five letters (A, B, C, D and E ) and a color code, from green to red, depending on the nutritional quality of the food.

"If the Nutri-Score was posted, parents would spread a lot of industrial food for children," says the UFC, which estimates that "82% of consumers can not read the complex table of mandatory nutritional analysis," while the Nutri-Score, it allows "to understand at a glance their poor nutritional quality".

"Too many manufacturers continue to saturate their products with sugars and fats" including cereals for children's breakfasts, according to the UFC which indicates that "+ cereals + Chocapic + and + Lion + of Nestlé and + Coco Pops + Kellog's are rated C ", while the" breakfast biscuits + Prince + of LU-Mondelez, the cereals + Frosties + and + Treasure + of Kellog's get a D ".

The association "calls on public opinion to mobilize by signing a European citizens' initiative petition () launched in May by several European consumer associations, which has gathered around 80,000 signatures so far.

The food giant Nestlé, which announced in June the adoption of Nutri-Score for all its products sold in Europe over a period of two years, said Tuesday that the deployment would begin in the first half of 2020 in five countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Switzerland.

"In addition, Cereal Partners Worldwide, the joint international company between Nestle and General Mills, will put the Nutri-Score labeling on the packages of its breakfast cereals in the same countries, and both companies are ready to put it on the market. in other countries that request it or will notify the European Commission, "Nestlé said in a statement.

In two years, "there are more than 5,000 products in the five countries that will display the Nutri-Score" including 1,200 in France, underline the two groups.

- "Apply it as a filter" -

In addition, the first French distribution group E.Leclerc and the catering giant Elior have announced their adhesion to Nutri-Score.

As of 28 November, this scale will be posted on the E. Leclerc Drive website "for all food products of the distributor brands and all food products of national brands that have provided the necessary nutritional information", which represents "60 % of the food products offered on the site ", indicates E.Leclerc in a statement.

"The Nutri-Score thus becomes a selection criterion for consumers who will have access to it at a glance on the site and can apply it directly as a filter," says the distributor.

Elior will start as early as 2020 to display the nutritional quality of meals served in the restaurants of its customers' business via the Nutri-Score, a first in the collective catering, said Tuesday its managing director Philippe Guillemot.

An experiment in two of Paris's leading corporate restaurants - whose name is not yet disclosed - serving more than 200 seats, will begin in January 2020 for several months, before being gradually extended to other sites operated by Elior. France, said a spokesman.

The Nutri-Score will be displayed in front of each starter, main course and dessert, and surveys will be conducted among consumers to observe their choices.

The group says it wants to evaluate all its recipes in the end, to offer "the possibility to everyone to choose their meal according to the nutritional quality of the food and the method of preparation".

© 2019 AFP