The nutritional information is no longer voluntary and has been upgraded. Since December, Regulation 1169/2011 requires it to be included in all food products, including those produced by caterers and those marketed over long distances.
This, however, is not the only aspect of labelling that has been recently changed. The new regulation has been adding innovations for a little over a year, striving for greater clarity. Some of these have to do with the size of the fonts, the origin of the raw materials and the introduction of information on allergens in the ingredient list.
The introduction of these amendments has led HISPACOOP (the Spanish Confederation of Cooperatives of Consumers and Users, to which EROSKI belongs) to conduct a study on consumer behaviour with regard to the information provided through food labels. The objective was to find out how knowledgeable consumers are of the changes made to the regulations applicable to all foods (based on Regulation Number 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council of 25 October 2011, regarding Food information provided to consumers).
Thus, the "Study of consumer behaviour on food information" includes the results of a total of 1,511 interviews with those in charge of shopping for home consumption in Spain, conducted between October and November 2015. Of these, 1,000 were carried out via the telephone and 511 were obtained online through the web platform EROSKI CONSUMER (www.consumer.es).
Innovations
At the time of the survey, 63% of respondents, who usually pay attention to the food labels, had not noticed changes in this information channel over the last 6 months.
Those who did (36%) identified several changes: in the ingredients that cause allergies or intolerances (17%) and in the clarity of nutritional information and the origin of vegetable oils and vegetable fats (10%, respectively). Other aspects were also highlighted to a lesser extent: that nutritional information is all in one place and is easier to read, that the required information is available and accessible, that the word "sodium" is replaced by "salt" and that there is now information about the country of origin or place of provenance of the product or the primary ingredient.
On nutritional information
One of the most important changes in the new legislation refers to mandatory nutritional information. In the survey, 72% of those in charge of the shopping confirmed paying attention to it.
And what information is considered the most important? 32% picked saturated fats, another 23% the energy value (calories), 15% chose trans fats and 11% picked sugars. To a lesser extent, other aspects mentioned include salt (or sodium), monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and other polyols or starch, fibre, minerals and others.
The European legislation also makes it compulsory to express all this nutritional information per 100 grams or 100 milligrams. Two out of three respondents believe that using this formula helps to understand the information. Those who think otherwise are, to a greater extent, people of over 65 years of age. The nutritional information may also be expressed in percentages of the reference intakes (RIs), whether by 100 grams or 100 milligrams or by consumer unit. Half of the respondents who read the nutritional information look at these proportions (again, those of over 65 years of age do it to a lesser extent).
On allergens
Another change covered by the legislation for food information has to do with the obligation to report the ingredients or substances that can cause allergies or food intolerance.
Nine out of ten respondents in charge of the shopping at home state that the presence of ingredients that can cause allergies or intolerance should be more clearly indicated. Moreover, 67% of them claimed to know that all food, whether pre-packaged or not, must include a label informing of the presence of such ingredients. However, it is also worth noting that 32% of the respondents admitted being unaware of it.
Source: eroski
