Italy plans its own alternative to the red-to-green Nutri-Score system | Laurie Dieffembacq/AFP via Getty Images
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Rome wants an alternative to the red-to-green nutrition labels that it sees as alarmist.
The Italian government has officially presented plans for a new nutrition-labeling scheme based on a battery design that it hopes will cast its traditional foods in a better light than the green-to-red Nutri-Score — a French label gaining traction across Europe.
The Italian food label, outlined in a notification to the European Commission, is called Nutrinform and resembles a charging light-blue battery. The label shows the percentage of energy and nutrients from a recommended daily intake in a single serving. The cell is full when the daily average recommended amount of a given nutrient has been reached.
Rome developed the system after pressure mounted at home from trade unions and politicians across the political spectrum to find an alternative to Nutri-Score’s traffic-light scheme. Italian critics accuse Nutri-Score of discriminating against the country’s gourmet delicacies, such as olive oil, Parma ham and Parmigiano cheese, which flash up on the redder-orangey end of the gauge as dangers to health due to their fat and salt content.
“[Nutrinform] is our alternative to Nutri-Score, but it is far better. It is not penalizing, it does not give good or bad grades,” Italian Agriculture Minister Teresa Bellanova said in a statement.
Other EU countries have also developed their own schemes, including a slightly different traffic light regime in the U.K. and a keyhole symbol in Sweden. But Nutri-Score has been picked up by countries like Germany and Belgium, as well as retailers and major food producers such as Nestlé and Danone.
Industry has been pushing for Brussels to introduce a unified labeling system across the bloc. The European Commission is poised to make a recommendation on what might make a Continent-wide standard in a report expected before the summer.
Bellanova stressed that such labels should be voluntary. “We ask the EU Commission to monitor this carefully because some large retail chains demand labeling with Nutri-Score,” she said. “It is unacceptable. It would be the end of the single market, a setback for consumers.
“Big distribution should not decide instead of the Commission or countries,” she added, arguing that some EU countries, especially France, should take action to stop what she described as an unfair practice.