Labelling

Clear and factual nutrition information helps us make informed decisions about the food and drink we want to buy and consume.

Complementing the mandatory nutritional information tables, simplified labelling on the front of food packaging can help consumers make better nutritional choices.

That's why we are supportive of mandatory front-of-pack labelling systems which provide a consistent and informative overview of the nutrition of a product.

In 2013, we made a voluntary commitment to use a system of multiple traffic lights on front of our packs in line with the guidance from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Such labels are now shown consistently on our wholly owned products as well as on our Nestlé Cereals sold in the Republic of Ireland.

There are other approaches to front-of-pack nutrition labelling though. In Europe, many countries have endorsed a system called Nutri-Score which provides a helpful, informative at-a-glance overview of the overall nutrition of a product. Nutri-Score translates the nutritional value of a food or drink product into a coloured scale, ranging from A (dark green) to E (red). The information used to calculate the value uses both 'favourable' and 'unfavourable' nutrients per 100g or per 100ml of product and is based on the nutrition information in the table featured on back-of-pack.

Nestlé was one of the first adopters of Nutri-Score, having joined the scheme in 2019. Since then, it has been implemented on thousands of Nestlé products. The Nutri-Score algorithm has recently undergone some changes, and we are one of the first companies to decide to implement the new algorithm on our products.

We continue to strive to make the facts about the nutritional content of our products transparent and as easy to understand as possible – both on front and back of pack and within relevant regulatory frameworks.

We also try to provide the information regarding servings and responsible consumption in a way people need to determine the right serving size for them.

Obesity is a growing problem around the world, and we know that portions have been getting bigger.

We want to help make eating the right amount of food easy and intuitive which is essential to being able to maintain a healthy diet. One way we can help achieve this is with clear guidance and messaging on our food and drink packaging.

We are supportive of initiatives that aim to bring consistency of labelling and portion guidance to industry and have worked with the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) on their recommendations for portion guidance and labelling.

Another way we can actively help consumers be mindful of portion sizes is through the design of our products and packaging, for example by dividing bars of chocolate into portion sizes.

The Nestlé Portion Guidance initiative helps make reasonable portions the easy choice for consumers. Developed with nutritionists, health authorities and other experts it recommends appropriate portions of our products. We're also working in partnership with others to develop messaging that helps consumers understand what is an appropriate portion size.

To help consumers enjoy our confectionery in moderation, we offer different formats for different occasions.