Forty stakeholders - consumer organisations, food manufacturers, retailers, MEPs and academics - called on the European Commission, on Monday 27 April, to make the Nutri-Score front-of-pack nutritional label mandatory in the EU to guide consumers towards healthy food choices.
According to these stakeholders, this would be a way to address a long-term public health issue, beyond the current focus on the immediate health threat from Covid-19.
“We believe that food plays an important part in maintaining a healthy society, and that we must therefore empower citizens throughout the EU to adopt balanced eating and drinking habits by providing clear nutritional information”, they wrote in a letter to Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
The signatories, including BEUC and MEPs Michèle Rivasi (Greens/EFA, France), Biljana Borzan (S&D, Croatia) and Véronique Trillet-Lenoir (Renew Europe, France), want the label to be made mandatory as part of the EU's future ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy.
Last November, MEPs from the Greens/EFA and S&D groups called on Europeans to sign the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) ‘Pro-Nutri-Score' to urge the Commission to act (see EUROPE 12365/18).
Link to the letter: https://bit.ly/359XVZH (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)