Last week, the Food Standards Agency backed the traffic-light system,which colour codes products to show levels of fat, sugar and salt.Campaigners regard it as the simplest and most effective system for useby children and parents.
Although Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Asda have signed up to the voluntaryscheme, the UK's biggest supermarket, Tesco, favours giving detailednutritional information based on recommended daily amounts.
Neera Sharma, principal policy officer for Barnardo's, said: "If anylabelling scheme is going to work it must be mandatory so there isconsistency."
Dr Jane Landon, deputy chief executive of the National Heart Forum, saidonly EU legislation could make the labels compulsory. She added that EUdirectives were being debated to prevent the labelling of foods asnutritious or low fat if their overall nutritional profiles wereunhealthy.
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