As consumer interest in healthy, clean label food continues to grow, so does a need to understand and contextualize the benefits. Nutri-Score is a Front-of-Pack (FoP) nutrition labelling scheme that allows a comparison of food products across categories and brands. It provides an evaluation of positive and negative nutritional aspects of the product’s micro, macronutrients and food components to favor such ingredients as oils, fruits and vegetables and legumes.

All pre-packed food and non-alcoholic drinks in the EU and US must carry a nutritional declaration on the back of the pack. Consumers rarely have time to read these tables and require a quick summary. A simplified FoP nutrition label with color-coding enables them to spot the healthier food or snack instantly.

It’s important as a bakery goods manufacturer to deeply understand the labelling schemes and develop those transparent, better-for-me products consumers want.

What is Nutri-Score?

Countries like France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland have openly backed the Nutri-Score system. The Nutri-Score (previously referred as to the “5-color nutrition label”) system rates food and beverages overall nutritional parameters on a scale from ‘A’ to ‘E’ with corresponding colors ranging from dark green to red.

It considers ‘negative’ nutritional attributes such as high sugar or salt and involves ‘positive’ factors such as proteins, dietary fibers, fruits vegetables, legumes and oils content and converts this into an easy to read value.

The choice of the Nutri-Score system, which is one of the many FoP nutrition labelling schemes proposed on the EU, is backed by scientific and consumer research. It is assumed that it is the easiest to understand, it helps consumers making healthy food choices, encourages manufacturers to reformulate products and helps consumers eating smaller portions.

How do you calculate your Nutri-Score and bake healthier products? Find out in our free technical paper!