Abstract
Two voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labels (FOPNL) are present in Australia: the government-led Health Star Ratings (HSR) and food industry-led Daily Intake Guide (DIG). Australia’s two largest supermarkets are key supporters of HSR, pledging uptake on all supermarket own brand foods (SOBF). This study aimed to examine prevalence of FOPNL on SOBF, and alignment with patterns of nutritional quality. Photographic audits of all SOBF present in three large supermarkets were conducted in Perth, Western Australia, in 2017. Foods were classified as nutritious or nutrient-poor based on the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (AGTHE), NOVA level of food processing, and HSR score. Most (81.5%) SOBF featured FOPNL, with only 55.1% displaying HSR. HSR was present on 69.2% of Coles, 54.0% of Woolworths, and none of IGA SOBF. Half (51.3%) of SOBF were classified as nutritious using the AGTHE, but using NOVA, 56.9% were ultra-processed foods. Nutrient-poor and ultra-processed SOBF were more likely than nutritious foods to include HSR, yet many of these foods achieved HSR scores of 2.5 stars or above, implying they were a healthy choice. Supermarkets have a powerful position in the Australian food system, and they could do more to support healthy food selection through responsible FOPNL.
Highlights
Front-of-pack nutrition labels (FOPNL) have the potential to provide consumers with a convenient guide to healthy food selection [1]
Supermarkets have a powerful position in the Australian food system [52] and their decision to support the Health Star Ratings (HSR) is significant
This study aimed to address three research questions: (1) What is the prevalence of nutrition labels on the front-of-pack of Australian supermarket own brand foods (SOBF)? (2) How do Australian SOBF rate for nutritional quality using three different measures: the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating (AGTHE), NOVA, and HSR? (3) Are Australian supermarkets using the HSR to promote nutritious or nutrient-poor own brand foods?
Summary
Front-of-pack nutrition labels (FOPNL) have the potential to provide consumers with a convenient guide to healthy food selection [1] It is a highly contested area of food labelling [2], and a variety of scoring systems and visual devices exist. They include initiatives from the food industry (e.g., the international Choices Program [3]), government agencies (e.g., the UK traffic lights [4]), and some supermarket scoring systems that are applied to shelf-edge labels of all foods (e.g., Guiding Stars [5]) These FOPNL have been described using a continuum with reductive (i.e., facts only, with no evaluation or recommendation) at one end, and evaluative (i.e., presence of the device indicates compliance with predefined criteria) at the other, with hybrid or interpretive (i.e., a combination of facts and symbols) in the middle [6].
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