Vahtras withholds approval for voluntary Nutri-Score label

Estonia’s Minister of Economic Affairs Liina Vahtras has withheld approval for a draft regulation allowing food businesses to use the Nutri-Score label voluntarily, calling for further analysis of alternatives and concerns raised by food producers, ERR reported.

The draft, prepared by the Ministry of Regional Affairs, would allow companies to use Nutri-Score, which rates a food product on a five-letter, colour-coded scale based on its nutrients. The system is intended to help consumers make healthier food choices.

Vahtras said the draft did not adequately explain how objections from the food sector had been addressed, what alternatives had been considered or how risks could be reduced. Food producers have opposed the label, calling it misleading and saying its effect on people’s health has not been scientifically proven. Paediatricians have supported it, arguing that they see the effects of obesity in their work and that information currently shown on food packaging is not clear enough.

Vahtras also said the draft did not establish what competition problem the label would solve or how much interest Estonian businesses had in using it. Companies and industry groups that contacted her ministry had not identified a clear need for Nutri-Score in Estonia, she said, adding that they did not expect it to provide a competitive advantage or a selling point in export markets.

According to Vahtras, Nutri-Score is not used in Estonia’s main nearby markets. Sweden and Denmark use the Keyhole label instead. She said studies suggest Nutri-Score can make it easier to compare the nutritional content of products, but its effect on consumers’ actual purchases is modest.

Vahtras cited a trial involving 60 supermarkets in which the nutritional quality of shopping baskets improved by 2.5% when products carried Nutri-Score labels. She said the effect was, on average, 17 times smaller than in laboratory studies, and that there was not enough convincing evidence of long-term health benefits.

She also warned that a simplified overall score could be misinterpreted. A favourable rating might suggest that a product is healthy overall, even though the label does not account for factors such as processing, portion size or a person’s overall diet. A better-than-expected score could also reduce consumers’ feelings of guilt, while marketing claims on packaging might weaken the warning effect of a poor score, she said.

Vahtras said these issues should be assessed before a system is chosen, including how to ensure the label helps consumers understand nutritional information without creating a misleading impression of a food’s overall healthfulness. Although use would be voluntary under the draft, companies would still face costs for changing packaging, calculating ratings and printing.