Brussels postpones the traffic light label for another six months – Corriere.it

Ah, the lobbies. Ah, nationalisms. Europe grappling with a rather dissociated debate, indeed with a clash: all the governments say they do not want us citizens to be obese or overweight; but on how to make ourselves virtuous a tough confrontation is underway that concerns serious interests of the Italian economy. In question is the Nutri-score, a system that notifies consumers of the nutritional qualities of the products that are sold to them.

It is a label (traffic light) to be applied on packages which shows five colours, from green (good) to red (bad), doubled by five letters, from A to E. The system was developed in France and Paris has adopted in 2017: since then, he has pushed for the EU to extend it to all 27 countries.

The Farm to Fork strategy

In 2020, the European Commission adopted the Farm to Fork strategy (from farm to fork) and committed to making a single “healthy” labeling system mandatory throughout the EU: it seemed that the Nutri-score was the one chosen. Italy opposed it, as it believes that the French model penalizes Italian products, especially PDO and PGI products: it therefore conducted, through the Draghi government and then the Meloni government, an action that resulted in the postponement of the EU decision: a further reason for friction between Rome and Emmanuel Macron. Now, Brussels will carry out an analysis of various labeling systems, will present the conclusions by mid-2023 and (perhaps) the outcome will be adopted from 2024. Hence the controversy against Rome and by extension Brussels: capitulate to the agri-food lobbies, gastronomic protectionism in action. Supporters of the Nutri-score say it is a scientific system.

Disadvantages for Italian cheeses and cured meats

It is based on an algorithm that considers the more or less harmful products in one hundred grams or one hundred milliliters of a product and (slightly less) the beneficial ones. According to critics, an absurd system that confuses consumers and penalizes typical products such as Parmigiano Reggiano, and Italian cheeses, raw ham and olive oil in general. The question seems complex but can be reduced to a simple concept: the Nutri-score in fact tells the consumer to buy this product that has a green mark, not to buy red or orange; quite different – as the Italian producers claim – to put informative labels, without warnings at traffic lights. Broadening the concept, these are two very different approaches: I, the authority, tell you what is good for you as opposed to I, the producer, inform you transparently and you choose. In the EU, the Nutri-score was first adopted in France, where initially there was opposition, and then in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Spain. Countries where the diet is different from the Italian one, more varied in number and quality of products.

The 5-color traffic light

The problem of the Nutri-score which would be mandatory, single and in colour: it means, so to speak, that Parmesan exported to Paris or Frankfurt would be heavily penalized by an orange label (D) in front of consumers who know its nutritional characteristics much less Italians. It is legitimate that in Parma and Reggio they defend their exports and that they suspect the system of being an instrument of protectionism by the countries of Northern Europe. Not a conspiracy against Italy but the five-color label is not even neutral. The clash, in Brussels, not over being overweight: fully commercial. As normal as it is, everyone has interests to defend. And the lobbies of him.