Understanding food labellingLabelling made easy

Traffic light labelling

Sainsbury's is one of the supermarkets offering traffic light nutrition labels

Have you ever found yourself confused in the supermarket? Do you want to buy the right foods for yourself and your family? Fed up wading through the small print on the back of food packaging?

You’re not alone. We’re strongly in favour of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) ‘traffic light’ colours on the front of their labels. The traffic light front-of-pack nutrition label uses red, amber and green to indicate whether fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt levels are high, medium or low.

Asda, The Co-operative Group, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, M&S, McCain, New Covent Garden Food Co, Budgens/Londis, Avondale, Moy Park, Bombay Halwa, Brittania and S&B Herba have already agreed to use the FSA system.

Salt, sugar and fat

A red light on the front of the pack means the food is high in something we should be trying to cut down on. It's fine to have these occasionally, or as a treat, but try to keep an eye on how often you choose these foods, or try eating them in smaller amounts.

An amber light means the food isn't high or low in the nutrient, so this is an OK choice most of the time, but you might want to go for the green for that nutrient some of the time.

A green light means the food is low in that nutrient. The more green lights, the healthier the choice.

If you want to make the healthy choice when you are shopping, go for more greens and ambers, and fewer reds.

Guide to nutrient levels in your food
Nutrient	High	Medium	Low
Sugars (per 100g)	Over 15g	Between 5g and 15g	5g and below
Fat (per 100g)	Over 20g	Between 3g and 20g	3g and below
Saturates (per 100g)	Over 5g	Between 1.5g and 5g	1.5g and below
Salt (per 100g)	Over 1.5g	Between 0.3g and 1.5g	0.3g and below

 

Daily maximum intake of salt
Age	Amount
Adults	6g per day (2.4g sodium)
Children: Up to 6 months old	Less than 1g a day (0.4g sodium)
Children: 7 to 12 months	1g a day (0.4g sodium)
Children: 1 to 3 years	2g a day (0.8g sodium)
Children: 4 to 6 years	3g a day (1.2g sodium)
Children: 7 to 10 years	5g a day (2g sodium)
Children: Over 11 years	6g a day (2.4g sodium)

A guide to keep in your pocket

To help you interpret food labels more easily, we've made a simple food shopping guide you can print, cut out and tuck into your wallet or purse.

Guideline Daily Amounts

Guideline Daily Amounts chart

However, some retailers and manufacturers - including Somerfield, Morrisons, Tesco, Pepsico, Danone, Kellogg's, Nestle and Kraft - have rejected traffic lights in favour of a label without colours that shows Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs).

Which? research shows that traffic lights are the best way to help people make healthy choices at a glance.

Why the traffic light system is best

It’s easy to use

Which? research shows that 97% of respondents were able to correctly identify and compare levels of nutrients using the traffic light system.

FSA research, including interviews with over 2,600 people, found it to be the best system.

It helps all consumers

The FSA research, reinforced by our own, found that the GDA scheme was confusing for some consumers, particularly those from lower socio-economic groups.

It explains your guideline daily amounts

The Which? and FSA research shows that consumers value traffic light colour coding as a way of interpreting what the levels shown mean. They like to be able to work out if, for example, a product that contains 20% of their GDA can be considered healthy or not.

How can things be improved?

Which? wants Tesco and the other manufacturers promoting an alternative scheme to base their system on what the research shows works best for consumers. They need to stop hiding behind GDAs and be honest about whether or not their products are high, medium or low in fat, sugar or salt.

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