`France Adopts Nutri-Score Labels - Olive Oil Times
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France Adopts Nutri-Score Labels

By Paolo DeAndreis
Mar. 18, 2025 23:21 UTC
Summary Summary

The French Minister of Agriculture and three fel­low min­is­ters have signed a decree to allow the new Nutri-Score algo­rithm for food label­ing in France, mak­ing it the lat­est coun­try to adopt the updated front-of-pack label­ing sys­tem after nearly two years of debate. Despite con­cerns about the lim­i­ta­tions of the FoPL, the min­is­ters empha­sized the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing French spe­cialty foods and culi­nary her­itage while work­ing to pre­vent any harm caused by the new algo­rithm, giv­ing pro­duc­ers two years to update their pack­ag­ing.

French Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Annie Genevard and three fel­low min­is­ters have signed a decree allow­ing the new Nutri-Score algo­rithm for food label­ing to come into force in France.

This mea­sure made France the lat­est coun­try to adopt the updated front-of-pack label­ing sys­tem (FoPL). It took nearly two years of heated debate to secure its approval.

Interestingly, while announc­ing the decree, Genevard and her col­leagues warned that the FoPL ​“has lim­i­ta­tions that it is essen­tial to cor­rect.”

See Also:Carrefour Mandates Nutri-Score Labels for French Suppliers

According to the min­is­ters, Nutri-Score penal­izes many French spe­cialty foods ​“although they offer rec­og­nized nutri­tional ben­e­fits when con­sumed accord­ing to nutri­tional guide­lines… and as part of a bal­anced, var­ied diet.”

“Those foods have earned qual­ity labels on their pack­ages. It is imper­a­tive that we pro­tect our culi­nary her­itage,” they remarked.

The min­is­ters empha­sized that they will actively work to pre­vent any harm ​“for prod­ucts that are the result of the rich­ness of our ter­roirs.”

Some notable French spe­cialty food pro­duc­ers, such as cheese­mak­ers, have crit­i­cized Nutri-Score since its incep­tion. They voiced even stronger objec­tions after the announce­ment of the new algo­rithm.

The French min­is­ters’ con­cerns closely mir­ror some of the most sig­nif­i­cant argu­ments raised against Nutri-Score’s adop­tion in other European coun­tries, includ­ing Italy.

Nutri-Score is a traf­fic-light-style FoPL that uses five coor­di­nated col­ors and let­ters to rate how healthy a pack­aged food is based on its fat, sugar, salt, and calo­rie con­tent per 100 grams or mil­li­liters. A ​“Green A” indi­cates the health­i­est option, while a ​“Red E” denotes the least nutri­tious.

The update intro­duces sub­stan­tial changes, includ­ing an improved rat­ing for olive oils. These changes have upgraded all grades of olive oil from ​“Yellow C” to ​“Light Green B.”

The updated algo­rithm makes no dis­tinc­tion between refined olive oil and extra vir­gin olive oil. This occurs because Nutri-Score does not explic­itly con­sider phe­nols and other rel­e­vant con­tent.

Although these com­pounds sig­nif­i­cantly con­tribute to extra vir­gin olive oil’s rep­u­ta­tion as a healthy super­food, its high-fat con­tent pre­vented it from achiev­ing the top Nutri-Score rat­ing.

Other foods, such as whole milk, have been down­graded under the new algo­rithm due to their fat con­tent.

The update has also resulted in lower rat­ings for sev­eral pop­u­lar prod­ucts, includ­ing those con­tain­ing alter­na­tive sweet­en­ers.

The sig­nif­i­cant revi­sion of the algo­rithm prompted the Danone food cor­po­ra­tion, an early Nutri-Score adopter, to harshly crit­i­cize the sys­tem and with­draw its use from a wide range of its prod­ucts.

While sign­ing the decree, the French min­is­ters empha­sized that com­bat­ing the coun­try’s obe­sity epi­demic remains the pri­mary goal of the new mea­sure.

“One in two French peo­ple are over­weight or obese today, with very strong social and ter­ri­to­r­ial inequal­i­ties,” they noted.

The min­is­ters praised the changes made by food pro­duc­ers to their prod­ucts to bet­ter align with Nutri-Score rat­ings, ​“par­tic­u­larly by reduc­ing salt, sugar and fat con­tent.”

Six coun­tries in Europe cur­rently use Nutri-Score: Germany, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Portugal briefly joined the list last April. However, two months later, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries announced that its deploy­ment was de facto ille­gal and can­celed the entire adop­tion process.

At the time, the Portuguese min­istry stressed that any vol­un­tary label­ing sys­tem in Portugal must rely on mod­els ​“respect­ful of Portuguese food prod­ucts.”

In their announce­ment, the French min­istries spec­i­fied that ​“eco­nomic actors involved in the process, if they wish, have two years to update their pack­ag­ing and affix the new Nutri-Score.”

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