People often choose and buy foods depending on factors such as personal preferences, price, their age, economic and socio-cultural position. However, Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling can support an informed, aware, and healthier food purchase. It should be easy to read and to understand independently of the consumer’s cultural level. There are already validated nutrition labels currently used in Europe as the so called “Positive” labels (Swedish Keyhole Label, the Slovenian Protective Food Symbol and the Finnish Heart Symbol) and the algorithms labels as the British Multiple Traffic Light, the French Nutriscore, and Italy is working on its own system, the Nutrinform. Since each of these food labelling systems has both strengths and weaknesses, devising a new European alogorithm for the general population incorporating the good points and correcting the weaknesses of the labels already being used, has become an urgent public health concern in the light of rising incidences of obesity and all the risks that are associated to it. We are of the opinion that the algorithms that express a global, non binary judgement on a product depending on an overall calculation of the healthy and unhealthy nutrients it contains, could be a good starting point. However, the new European nutrition label, versus those already in use, should express a more comprehensive global appraisal that takes into consideration also some other important nutrition facts, and at the same time should be able to represent all European countries with different food and eating cultures and nutritional problems. Moreover, because the consumer may find portions expressed in grams of product incomprehensible, we underline also the importance to express, when possible, the portions in product units with information on calories per unit.
Nutrition; Labelling; Algorithm; Portions