New food labelling system

All the major supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-operative, Waitrose and Tesco - have announced that they will use a new front-of-packet labelling system on their products.

They have been joined by food producers Mars UK, Nestle UK, PepsiCo UK, Premier Foods and McCain Foods.

The Department of Health said the businesses that had signed up to using the new label to date accounted for more than 60% of the food that is sold in the UK.

All the major supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, the Co-operative, Waitrose and Tesco - have announced that they will use the label on their products, alongside Mars UK, Nestle UK, PepsiCo UK, Premier Foods and McCain Foods.

However, Coca-Cola and Cadbury have not signed up because they feel the use of guideline daily amounts is a better system, according to the BBC.

Shadow public health minister Diane Abbott has given a guarded welcome to announcement on food labelling but insists more must be done to tackle child obesity.

A traffic light food ­labelling system is being brought in by all the major supermarkets from today. The colour will signal products that are high in fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Red warning logos will appear on food considered ‘bad’ for health under a new traffic light labelling scheme.

Amber and Green will indicate foods deemed ‘medium’ or ‘good’ in terms of health value.

The amount of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar will be presented as Reference Intakes - formerly known as Guideline Daily Amounts .

These will show how much of the maximum daily intake a portion accounts for.

A new front-of-pack food label, aimed at tackling obesity, is being launched today - with the backing of health groups and the major supermarkets.

The label combines traffic light colour-coding and nutritional information in the new form of "Reference Intakes" in place of GDAs (Guideline Daily Amounts) to show how much of the maximum daily intake of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories is in a 100g portion.