4^th International Food Safety, Quality & Policy Conference

The incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, obesity and cancer, is still rising in the world; not only in well developed Western countries, but also in Latin America, The Middle East, Africa and in Asia. These diseases have been correlated with a too high dietary intake of saturated fatty acids, trans fatty acids, sodium, added sugar and energy, or a too low consumption of fibers. Governments are looking for tools to reduce the incidence of NCDs. Also the WHO asked food producers to make the healthy choice the easy choice for consumers. Already over 20 years ago, this led to the development of a Front of Pack (FoP) symbol indicating food products with relatively better amounts of the above mentioned nutrients. Nowadays, in many countries these kind of FoP symbols are used or in development. There are several appearances of FoP-logo’s around the world, all with a slightly or more different set up of the criteria system behind the logo. There are also other less directive FoP symbols used that leave the interpretation of the healthiness of the product more to the consumer. In the presentation an overview will be given of different kind of logos around the world and some insights in the effectiveness of the Dutch Choices logo will be presented.