Feb 24 2009

No wonder food companies don’t like traffic lights

A report just out from the European Union explains why food companies so strongly oppose traffic light systems for labeling food products.  Consumers interpret red lights as meaning “don’t eat me.”  Here is how the U.K. Food Safety Authority is using traffic lights.  Compare this to the check mark system preferred by the food industry.

UK Food Standards Agency labels

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Seems like the consumers have the right idea: pick foods without the red flags.

[...] ignorance (cf. Sarah Palin), though business in general seems to prefer uninformed customers. (See this post by Marion Nestle.) Here’s the story in the LA Times, and here are a couple of snippets: The [...]

  • joe cote
  • April 2, 2009
  • 11:00 am

What about the folks that have some level of red/green colorblindness? Personally, there are times when I can’t tell the difference, usually depending on the shade of red/green and also the size of the dots. If the labels always had the word ‘low’ or ‘high’ that would be fine (but then why have the colors….?)

Anyway, I try to buy “food” not “food products”, so this really doesn’t affect our household much.

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