FSA denies talks with restaurants over traffic light labelling system

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has dismissed claims it is in talks with the hospitality industry to get restaurants and contract caterers to adopt its traffic light labelling system.

A report in today's Daily Telegraph said the organisation was in talks with fast-food chain McDonald's and contract caterer Compass Group to find out how the scheme could be introduced into food service.

However, a spokeswoman for the FSA told Caterersearch the report was inaccurate saying the Daily Telegraph had "got the wrong end of the stick".

"We are in talks with contract caterers about introducing healthier options and improving the food they offer in work places and canteens," she said.

"But we are definitely not talking to them about adopting the traffic lights scheme. The system has been specifically designed for the retail sector and that's where it works best and there are no plans to introduce it to the food service industry."

The traffic light labelling scheme, which sees foods labelled green, amber and red according to whether they have low, medium or high levels of fat, salt and sugar is currently being used by major supermarkets including Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Asda.

Read the full story in the Daily Telegraph here >>

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By Kerstiin Kühn

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