I am sure that FT columnist Michael Skapinker has written about traffic lights food labelling before and his latest article is provocatively called: The food companies that make people fat.
He criticises Coca-Cola and Unilever for sticking with guideline daily amounts (GDAs) when traffic lights work much better.
Former Walmart Europe public affairs head Bernard Hughes wrote in to support Skapinker. He said: "There isn't ever a perfect information system flowing with beautiful logic. But traffic lights give powerful direction to the busy consumer."
But in this age of smart phones surely this debate over the labelling on the packaging is easily overcome. The government can simply issue an app that when held over a bar code provides shoppers with a traffic light system. The supermarkets could do this on their websites.
Surely the whole point about the future is that the internet and limitless data storage means that the shopper is being empowered with the information to make comparisons on their smart phones.
"Our customers made it very clear that [traffic light labelling] was their preferred choice - they could actually understand the message behind the symbol - and selected this option by a large margin when we tested their opinion," said Bernard Hughes.
What shoppers want, the internet will give. This is a debate that should be at an end.
See www.betterretailing.com for more insight.
He criticises Coca-Cola and Unilever for sticking with guideline daily amounts (GDAs) when traffic lights work much better.
Former Walmart Europe public affairs head Bernard Hughes wrote in to support Skapinker. He said: "There isn't ever a perfect information system flowing with beautiful logic. But traffic lights give powerful direction to the busy consumer."
But in this age of smart phones surely this debate over the labelling on the packaging is easily overcome. The government can simply issue an app that when held over a bar code provides shoppers with a traffic light system. The supermarkets could do this on their websites.
Surely the whole point about the future is that the internet and limitless data storage means that the shopper is being empowered with the information to make comparisons on their smart phones.
"Our customers made it very clear that [traffic light labelling] was their preferred choice - they could actually understand the message behind the symbol - and selected this option by a large margin when we tested their opinion," said Bernard Hughes.
What shoppers want, the internet will give. This is a debate that should be at an end.
See www.betterretailing.com for more insight.
Comments
Post a Comment