The government white paper Choosing Health sets out plans to ensure companies adopt a consistent and clear standard for presenting nutritional information on foods. They argue that people need to understand what’s inside the product they’re purchasing in order to make better food choices regarding health.
The Food Agency Standard have put forward their recommendation for a consistent approach to front of pack labelling that will provide ‘at a glance’ information on labels about the nutritional content of foods. It seems their signposting idea of ‘traffic light labelling’ has been widely adopted in most major supermarkets as much research suggests that it’s the best aid for consumers to pick the healthy option:
However, some of the UK’s biggest food firms have introduced their own standard for signposting and argue that GDA is clearer and much more useful to the consumer. This evidently causes conflict with the government’s proposal to standardise food packaging and thus resulting in multiple signposting for consumers to make decisions with.
How on earth do elderly people feel about this? What nutritional information is important to them?
We mentioned before that avoiding information overload was an important design consideration when designing for elderly people. Bob who recently had a stroke needs to ensure he enjoys food which keeps his blood-pressure low, so it’s important that the information is put across. Therefore, our design should enable the viewing of nutritional information in a form which elderly people prefer and understand so they can make well-informed decisions upon.
Reading
Food colour coding 'best option', BBC, Link
Food firms 'go own way on labels', BBC, Link
Choosing Health: White Paper, Department of Health, Link
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