07 May 2025 New study: Can front-of-pack product labelling fix the obesity crisis?

With FOP (front-of-pack) labelling a key aspect of SA’s still draft and much-ridiculed ‘new’ food labelling regulations, R3377, here’s a pertinent new study on this topic….

Business for Impact at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business (Washington DC) has published a new white paper titled, “Can Front-of-Pack Product Labeling Fix the Obesity Crisis?”

Researched and written by Hank Cardello, executive-in-residence at the unit, it evaluates data from multiple countries to test the efficacy of various FOP labelling initiatives and ultimately argues that food labelling has not led to meaningful improvements in public health outcomes.

Some comment from SA’s food-scientist-at-large, Nigel Sunley, who has long been a critic of FOPL as a means to better public health:

“This excellent and well-researched paper only serves to vindicate the view that, contrary to the assertions of the anti-industry public health nutrition community, legislation will NOT change consumer behaviour or address the obesity problem.

“The Chilean experience, which appears to be the basis for the FOP component of R3337, amply demonstrates this. If DoH insist on retaining FOP warning labels in the over-complex and unenforceable R3337, don’t expect them to lead to any real public health benefit and they will simply result in huge packaging change costs for industry which will inevitably be passed on to the consumer.

“High time that the public health brigade accepted that the criteria for success should be actual improvement in our health and not just plastering food with warnings that, according to the paper, are simply ignored.

“Their whole approach smacks of anti-industry ideology rather than constructive engagement and they need to instead face the harsh but unavoidable reality that education and not regulation is the answer!“

Related reading:

Where to now with R3337?

So, the deadline of July 21 for comment on the infamous R3337 has passed and, having spent a great deal of time in the last few months providing assistance to companies and organisations that will be affected by the new proposals on labelling and advertising, labelling expert Nigel Sunley takes stock and speculates a little on what will happen next.