Fake It Till You Make It: Why Big Food Backs Away From Front-of-Pack Labels
How Companies Champion Food Labels - Until they don’t
Companies rush to showcase their commitment to clear labeling and consumer “awareness”—until those very labels begin telling stories they'd rather keep under wraps.
This pattern of convenient compliance followed by strategic backoff shows a troubling dynamic in corporate responsibility.
Clear food labelling such as the Front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FoPNL) is simplified nutrition information on the front of food packaging that aims to help consumers with their food choices.
Why are Big Food companies hesitating to use FoPNL?
FoPNL can lead manufacturers to reformulate the constituents of their products, impacting product identification and consumption.
Look at this most recent example from a Big Food company, Danone:
Danone, one of the largest global food companies, became on e of the first food giants to adopt a labelling system called, Nutri-Score
The message was from Danone back then was clear: “We care about your health, and we’ll give you the tools to make the right choices”
However, transparency became inconvenient and Danone did a U-Turn
Fast forward to 2024, the message changed. Danone in Europe made the surprising decision to remove the Nutri-Score from five of its major brands, including Actimel and Activia.
Why? Because the updated Nutri-Score system, revised by a European scientific committee, was no longer flattering to these products—especially their sugary drinkable yogurts and plant-based beverages.
“Ta ذغ iya” by Sarah Zahr
The Nutri-Score algorithm had been updated to give more weight to sugar content, penalizing products that contained high amounts of added sugar
Many of Danone’s drinkable products fell into this category, and the once favorable scores of A or B slipped to the less marketable D or E. For a company that heavily promoted the health benefits of its products, a D or E rating didn’t exactly scream "nutritious."
Sources
- Why did danone decide to remove the nutri score from its brands of yoghourt and vegetable drinks Nutri-Score Blog, 2024
- Julia C, et al. (2022). Are foods ‘healthy’ or ‘healthier’? Front-of-pack labelling and the concept of healthiness applied to foods. Br J Nutr. 127(6): 948-922. DOI: 10.1017/S0007114221001428
