Consumer group Choice has thrown its support behind a federal government move towards clearer sugar labelling.
The Federal Government’s recently announced options paper on added sugar includes suggestions of stronger measures for sugar labelling, such as visual labelling of teaspoons of sugar on sugar-sweetened beverages.
Choice’s campaigns and policy team lead Katinka Day said these options would allow Australians to make “genuinely informed decisions” as to their sugar intake.
“Labelling added sugar in the nutritional information panel and ingredient list is essential,” she said.
“But on top of this we need visual labelling of the amount of teaspoons of sugar in sugar – sweetened beverages to help people identify just how much sugar is in these drinks.”
Day said some teenagers were consuming 38 teaspoons of added sugar per day, equivalent to the sugar in four cans of Coke.
“It’s essential we have labelling that allows people to easily identify the high level of sugar in these products, rather than letting companies get away with hiding this information in opaque statements on the back of packets,” she said.
“At the moment you have to be a food scientist to identify added sugars in processed foods.
“People in Australia have no clear way of knowing how much sugar has been added to a food.”
The options paper follows continued advocacy from Choice and a 2017 report which found that if consumers could identify added sugars on food packs they could avoid 26 teaspoons of sugar each day and up to 38.3 kilograms a year.
A decision on sugar labelling sits with state, territory and federal food and health ministers, who will meet later this year to identify a solution.
