French cheesemakers have denounced the country’s color-coded nutrition information scheme as “disastrous” after it deemed some of its finer products less healthy than McCain’s oven chips.
They are alarmed by reports that Brussels wants to force all food stores in the European Union to adopt the voluntary French scheme which, like Britain, labels each item with a color code determined by an algorithm that assesses calories. , fat, sugar and salt.
Traditionalists fear that consumers will reject authentic French cheeses because they are coded red or orange, meaning they are less nutritious than chicken nuggets in light green, frozen pizza and vanilla ice cream in yellow, or baked potatoes. McCain oven, which have the best dark green rating possible.
Cheeses such as Roquefort do not perform well under the Nutri-Score scheme
ALAMY
François-Xavier Huard, President of the National Council
