Tesco gives the green light to the ‘traffic light system’

Tesco has performed a u-turn by agreeing to feature the “traffic light” colour coding system on its packaging, after shunning the voluntary guidelines for five years.

Tesco seemed to be putting of implementing this and using their own version - which never got picked up by other supermarkets.

The “traffic light” system features red, amber and green indicators for a food’s fat, salt or sugar content, which has led to retailers fearing the red signal would stigmatise some foods and damage sales.

Tesco was vehemently against the Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommended system in 2007 and spearheaded a rebellion against it via a TV campaign.

The campaign promoted Tesco’s favoured Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) system, which informs customers how many calories and nutrients people can consume each day for a healthy and balanced diet.

Tesco will run the “traffic light” system alongside the GDA information, but has defended its u-turn by claiming GDA gives “accurate and meaningful information” as opposed to the “simple at-a-glance” guidance of the “traffic light” system.

The supermarket giant claims the change of heart is a result of new customer research that showed customers prefer the combination of traffic lights colours with the GDAs.