Fruit and Vegetable Industry Session N°2

Policies for encouraging healthier food choices: opportunities for the fruits and vegetables sector.

Policy decisions should fundamentally be based on science and promoting healthier diets. Nutrition labelling policy should consider consumer use, interpretation and understanding of different nutrition labelling schemes, promoting sustainable healthy purchasing decisions. Value chain actors and consumers need to have appropriate levels of nutrition literacy to be able to understand the role health considerations play in purchasing decisions. What awareness raising and education initiatives are most effective? Who should be the primary target of which information and education initiatives – parents, children, others?

Furthermore, most research on Front-of-Pack (FOP) formats has been conducted in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Given the potential for variance, studies in other regions are needed to understand better local consumer attitudes. Research from South Africa specifically highlights the need to conduct studies in developing countries as a priority. In addition, publicly available research on the actual impact of FOP nutrition labels is limited.

Little is known about whether consumers make long-term healthier food choices as a result of having used nutrition information. More research is needed to know to what extent do nutrition labelling schemes have to be standardised to help consumers cultivate healthy eating habits and on how can consumers be helped to make good use of nutrition labels to motivate them to eat healthier.