Analytical Report - Desserts

Introduction

There has been a dramatic increase in the number and type of dessert products being sold.  The proportion of household income devoted to food is now smaller than it has ever been, with the result that the typical shopper can afford to spend a little extra on what they see as a luxury. The supermarkets have responded vigorously to this, by introducing an array of chilled and frozen desserts, some of which have to be pre-heated before serving.  Some replicate classic favourites such as jam roly poly and apple pie but others like rhubarb and clotted cream cheesecake, and chocolate and pannacotta pecan brownie would require rather more time and skill to create at home.

Against the rising UK tide of obesity, the Food Standards Agency has brought in its front of pack signposting labelling – the Traffic Light Labelling Scheme.  This tries, in a simple way, to tell consumers whether any food they may be considering purchasing contains small, medium or large amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.  It inevitably has deficiencies, but does provide at-a-glance information provided enabling busy consumers to make an informed choice about the food they purchase. A consumer does not have to read the packet to see whether the nutrients supplied are high or low but can use the traffic lights

High (red), Medium (amber), or Low (green)

The alternative is standard nutrition labelling. Here the consumer has to:

1. Look at the “back” of most packets, by picking them up and turning them over,
2. Find the information, which is often in a small font, and may be in either linear or tabular form, and
3. Find the information for each nutrient, convert to “per portion” if necessary, and decide whether this is low, medium or high. 

All of this takes time, whereas traffic light labelling is front of pack, and only the colours need be glanced at.  This is a voluntary scheme but increasing numbers of manufacturers and suppliers are adopting it.

Traffic light labelling may have been brought in to give consumers quick access to basic nutrition information, but it serves a secondary, and in some respects more important, function.  Manufacturers and retailers know that, if they have two similar products side by side in a display cabinet, the average consumer will pick the product with fewer red or amber traffic lights.  Therefore, it has become a powerful tool for re-formulating processed foods, to reduce the amount of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.

Forty samples of prepared desserts were submitted for analysis by Trading Standards.  The types of product included gateaux, cheesecakes, pies, éclairs and Pavlovas.  The survey was designed to determine those parameters given by traffic light labelling, and to see whether or not any applied labelling was accurate.  Portion size is important here, and was generally taken as the manufacturer’s recommendation. 

 

Summary

One sample was found to have twice the fat declared. This result has to be treated with care as being a single sample it cannot be regarded as representative of the whole batch. Further sampling will be undertaken to see if this was a one off or whether there are quality control problems. Similarly, one sample claimed to provide “54.8%” of the sugar GDA per portion, but only contained 28%.

One sample had the wrong traffic light for the level of fat found. It showed a red light when the result indicated amber as the appropriate light. Again the result of a single sample cannot be regarded as representative of the whole batch.  This result will be brought to the attention of the Home Authority Trading Standards Service for the manufacturer.

18 samples did not declare ingredients exactly in accordance with the format described in the regulations. Ingredients are required to be labelled in descending order by weight but these samples listed the main compound ingredients and then at the end listed the ingredients for each of the main compound ingredients.  It might be argued that this makes the information clearer, but it is not in strict accordance with the Regulations. 

For example an Apple Pie.  The list of ingredients should be given as:

 “Bramley Apples (25%) (contains x, y, z), wheat flour, sugar …..” 

But a popular alternative format which is not provided for in the regulations was:

“Bramley Apples (25%), wheat flour, sugar …
 Bramley Apples contain x, y, z.”

On seven labels, both sodium and salt were given in the nutrition information.  Again it could be argued that this helps consumers, who are probably more used to the concept of salt (with the emphasis on 6g per day) than sodium, which is what is required by the Regulations, and is technically the more correct.  The proposed new EU food regulation will require salt to be declared instead of salt so hopefully will resolve this issue.

The portion sizes given by the manufacturers varied greatly from 30g for an éclair to 200g for a fruit dessert. Based on these sizes it was possible to calculate the amount of sugars, fat and saturated fat per portion.

For sugars, this ranged from 8g to 34g per portion
For fat, from 3g to 28g per portion and
For saturated fat from 1g to 10g per portion.

Applying the traffic light criteria to all 40 products, albeit on the basis of one sample –

12 were red, 25 amber and 3 green for fat

36 were red and 4 amber traffic lights for sugar.

These figures are not surprising for sweet desserts but do show that there is some choice for consumers to select lower fat and sugar options.

For further details on the traffic light labelling scheme visit the Food Standards Agency website.

 

April 2008