One in three meals sold on the high street now display calorie labelling, including 70% of fast food and takeaway meals.
That’s according to research presented by Gwen Nightingale, deputy director for the Obesity & Food Policy team at the Department of Health, at a meeting of the Government-backed Responsibility Deal Food Network to discuss progress under the scheme.
She highlighted the Mitchells & Butlers-owned Harvester brand and the Camden Food Company as two different concepts that currently list calorie labelling as part of a Responsibility Deal commitment.
Nightingale contrasted the relative speed of progress on calorie labelling via the voluntary Responsibility Deal with the situation when laws are passed to enact changes.
Out-of-home calorie labelling was the first food pledge under the Responsibility Deal, dating from 2011. In the US, the Food and Drink Administration has still not passed final legislation around a national policy on labelling, even though it was part of a law dating back to 2010.
However, Nightingale said there was more work to be done around reformulation of foods, with sign up levels “good” from retailers but “poor from the out of home sector”.
She said salt intake has fallen 15% from 9.5g in 2001 to 8.1g in 2011, and currently 75% of the retail market and 65% of the major high street and contract caterers have made commitments to salt reduction. Thirty one businesses have so far committed to extended 2017 targets but the industry “needs to go further”.
All major supermarkets and 65% of major high street and contract caterers have committed to removing artificial trans fats, and almost half the food manufacturing and retail industry has committed to saturated fat reduction across a range of products.
She said 39 leading food and drink companies, including sandwich chain Subway as well as Coca-Cola, Mars, Nestle, along with eight major retailers have signed up to the calorie reduction pledge. Fourteen businesses committed to reduce sugar in soft drinks.
Nightingale said it’s proving “difficult to secure collective action” on promotions compared to salt reduction and labelling. But she highlighted some progress that had been made, such as the Pepsi offered in cinemas being sugar free and Britvic’s Fruit Shoot being no added sugar only.
