LAS VEGAS — Front-of-package labeling is designed to help shoppers “who need help navigating healthy choices,” Karlis Nollendorfs, senior manager of consumer insights on health and wellness for General Mills, told a workshop audience here last week during the annual National Grocers Association Convention.
Citing three types of consumers, Nollendorfs said “health confident” shoppers have no problem finding healthy products, and “taste first” shoppers have no interest in health. “But the ‘conflicted’ consumer in the middle is the one who wants help, and those are the ones front-of-package labeling is for.”
Nollendorfs said he advocates fact-based labeling — the approach Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association have endorsed, he noted; while others, such as Wal-Mart, prefer a criteria-based approach.
“Facts are more important than health claims,” he said, “though I believe the two approaches can coexist.”
According to Nollendorfs, close to 70% of CPG companies intend to use fact-based front-of-package labeling on their products — an effort that will be supported by a $50 million education campaign.
Joining Nollendorfs at the workshop session, Jeff Caravan, deputy director of labeling and the program delivery division at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said his employers require food safety information be available at the point of purchase, though not on the packaging itself. “But if the Food and Drug Administration makes any changes for more consistency across all food categories, we would change with them,” he said.
Julie Lewis, acting director of the country-of-origin labeling branch of the USDA, said approximately 13,000 items — including certain cuts of meat and poultry, along with fish, produce, certain nuts and ginseng — have been governed by certain labeling requirements since March 2009, “and when we do inspections, 98% are properly labeled.”
“Most non-compliance is due to no labels at all, while the labels are inaccurate on only a handful of items,” she noted.
The panel was moderated by David Orgel, editor-in-chief of SN.
