Breakfast giant Kellogg’s will feature a “traffic light” labelling system on the majority of its cereals in the UK from January to better communicate how much salt, sugar and fat the foods contain.
Kellogg’s had previously refused to take part in the UK government’s voluntary scheme but has decided to make the change having listened to consumers, government and retailers.
The traffic light system labels foods green, amber or red, to help consumers easily identify products that have low, medium or high levels of salt, fat and sugar.
It will start to appear on brands including Coco Pops, Crunchy Nut, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Frosties and Special K from January 2019, with the rollout to be complete by early 2020.
“We are changing because the people who buy our food told us we should. Following our announcement late last year to overhaul our cereals in the UK, we decided to look again at labelling,” Kellogg’s said in a statement.
Kellogg’s UK managing director Oli Morton said the company is acting on results from a survey of 2,000 Britons about their attitudes towards food labelling.
“Put simply, they said we should change and move to a full colour solution as they want help making healthy decisions. We’ve listened and now we’re acting,” Morton said.
Kellogg’s has used the “Reference Intake” labelling scheme up to now, which shows the maximum amount of calories and nutrients people should eat in a day.
“Times have changed; changing to colour coded labels is a response to what consumers and government want from us in the UK,” he added.
While the new system is receiving high praise from consumers in the UK, it doesn’t appear to be coming to Australia anytime soon. A spokesperson for Kellogg’s Australia told Inside FMCG that the company supports the Australian Health Star Rating system.
“In Australia and New Zealand, we support the Government defined Front of Pack Label – Health Star Rating – to help consumers more easily make informed choices about the foods they buy for themselves and their families,” the spokesperson said.
