Food and health issues arise are being more concerned in modern society, government among different countries developing many food and health polices including nutrition labelling. Nutrition labelling scheme being more and more popular title among the world. Various forms of mandatory labelling schemes regulation on nutritional information have been implemented by at least 40 countries or areas such as USA, New Zealand and Canada in 2005(e_fseh_panelpaper05), Hong Kong was far to reach the process of global trend at that time. Hong Kong firstly enacted the nutrition labelling in 2008.
Two main approaches of nutrition labelling are applied, one is claim-based labelling which becomes mandatory when the product contains nutrient-related claims, it is popular in Japan and Singapore, another one which applied in USA and Canada is mandatory for all pre-packaged food (NL_backgroundfactsheetpdf). Nutrition labelling in Hong Kong is mandatory for general pre-packaged food, but it doesn’t cover the formula and food for these children below the age of 36 months and Dietary for special nutritional requirements. It is based on reference to internationally accepted standard derived from Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling of Codex (NL_backgroundfactsheetpdf), which is guideline of joint agreement from different aspects of experts in 1985, together with refer to the regulation of different countries.
There are three aims of mandatory nutrition labelling in Hong Kong which are stimulating the informed food choices chosen by consumers, regulating any misleading or deceptive labeling and claiming before, encouraging the sound nutrition principles are applied by food manufacturers in formulation of foods.
The amount and types of nutrients may vary among different countries based on different in eating habits of public and local public health awareness. According to (NL_backgroundfactsheetpdf)+legco brief, Only 4 main nutrients are required which are energy, carbohydrates, total fat protein on nutrition labels in Singapore and the European Union countries. However, some country including the United States and Canada have a wider list of 14 to 15 nutrients including trans fats which was suggested by WHO to be included in nutrition labelling in 2007. In Hong Kong, the nutrition labelling format must include the amounts of 1+7 which are energy plus protein, carbohydrates, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar and sodium. They were selected based on concerns arise from public health situation in Hong Kong refer to essential health statistics from different kinds of clinical epidemiology studies. Moreover, the amount of cholesterol should be listed according to any type of fat is claimed. Additional nutrient information is voluntarily to be labelled on nutrition label
The nutrition labelling Scheme was firstly introduced into Hong Kong in 2008. Two major domains of nutrition information which are nutrition labelling were covered in this scheme. The director of Food and Environmental excise the power to make the Amendment Regulation of nutrition labelling on 31 March 2008 (https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/food_leg/files/legco_brief.pdf). Some active steps were taken by government to enact nutrition labelling though process. Nutrition labelling was finally enacted on 28 May 2008 by Legislative Council (https://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/programme/programme_nifl/files/teaching_kit/NL_Background_Factsheet_e.pdf). The Regulation enforced on 1 July 2010 after a grace period of two years.
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Discussion:
Before the mandatory nutrition labelling regulation is introduced, several actives steps stated by (NL_background) had been taken by Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. First, recognizing the percentage of prepackaged food with nutrition claims or labels by studying the international situation and conducting surveys on local market. Next, the local public health situation had reviewed and found out which nutrients is the most essential to cause or related to cause chronic diseases. Then, suitable costs and potential health benefits of nutrition labelling scheme were assessed. After that, public consultation and opinion survey was carried out to recognize the consideration arise from the public related to nutritional labelling. At the end, opinions were sought and the technical details of proposal is explained by holding a set of technical meetings with industry. These active actions causing the introduction of nutrition labelling more smoothly and ensure the policy fulfilled the demands from customer, public health and food industry.
The nutrition labelling scheme enforced and impacts different stakeholders mainly on customer, public health and food industry.
Customer:
Nutrition labelling scheme makes a great impact on customer. Several surveys have been conducted showing the attitudes of public towards nutrition labels scheme. Both surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012 pointed out the public customer preserved very positive attitude towards nutrition labelling since most of the public consider it is able to promote public health, encourage healthy food products are produced or developed by food industry and promote a balanced diet among customers (surmmary_of_survey_on_FS_and_NL_2012…+NL_survey_result_executive). This positive attitude from customer is increased from 2009 to 2012. A survey (surmmary_of_survey_on_FS_and_NL_2012…) also pointed most of population agreed that it is essential to browse the information listed on nutrition labels before purchasing the prepackaged food (86.7%) as they think the information on nutrition labels are helpful to establish healthy food choices for them by deciding what food to buy. Besides, the habit of frequently reading nutrition labels in customer was increased from 32.6% in 2008 to 36.3% in 2012. The customer with higher level of education such as attaining matriculation or tertiary education, higher income groups, together with higher in frequent purchasing the prepackaged food in demographic characteristics usually have higher proportions of frequently browsing the nutrition label, since they are more familiar with the knowledge of nutrition and nutrition labels than public. Hence these groups of customers gain more benefit in nutrition labels to have a healthy food choice. Besides the positive attitudes of public, higher than 75% of respondent think a wide promotion of nutrition labelling from different publicity channels such as newspapers, website, magazines and television able them to obtain information on nutrition and nutrition labelling (surmmary_of_survey_on_FS_and_NL_2012…), helping them to adapt a healthier food choices and lifestyle.
Although the food choices are decreased, 81.4% respondent think require prepackaged food to list nutritional information is still worth it was found in Survey conducted by Polytechnic University (Public_OPINION_pdf). Since they can adapt a smarter food choice when purchasing the prepackaged food products. Moreover, the survey stated that 54.6% of respondent think the nutrition labelling scheme should be implemented as soon as possible while only 38.8 think two-year grace period is appropriate. This showing the craving of implementation of nutrition labelling from customers.
However, small portion of customer especially these with less education, low income and elderly are difficult to understand the nutrition information to daily intake and the application of different terminology on nutrition label such as serving size, number of servings per package. Also, some of them are unable to read the labels due to illiterate and small font size problem (low_education_pdf), Audit Commission suggested that publicity and education efforts should be set up and user-friendliness of the nutrition labels should be improved to enhanced public awareness and understanding about nutrition labelling from this small portion of customer. In summary, nutrition labelling can satisfy customer’s needs.
Public health objectives:
Public health gains benefit from nutrition labelling scheme by preventing the diseases, providing healthier eating habit to public and saving the costs of imbalanced diet. Based on (public health), the nutrition labelling scheme is supported by public health. 100% of submission from patient groups and 98% of submissions from dietitians, medical doctors and other related association or comity support the scheme for public interest and they hastened nutrition labelling implementation become mandatory in HK. As the professional recognized the significance of nutrition labelling for making product-to-product comparison and enhance the practicality of diets for treatment of nutrition related disease such as obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease and cancer.
Besides, Department of Community Medicine at the University of Hong Kong has reported in Regulatory Impact Assessment that several costs that related to nutrition-related disease can be reduced through nutrition labelling (final_report_1). Saving more than 143 million $HKD from public hospital utilization, spending on general practitioner visits and medicines and productivity loss that related with nutrient-related diseased and avoiding 107 premature deaths cases every year in Hong Kong if 1+7 format is used. Hence, public health gains benefit from saving expenditure of nutrient related diseased in nutrition labelling.