The UK government wants a new universal front-of-pack labelling system, which will assist customers with the health benefits of food products - and says it will be rolled out across all UK supermarkets by next year.
Thenew labels will be colour coded with a traffic-light system and usage of the words 'high', 'medium' and 'low' to show the amount of fat, sugarand calories within a product.
Although only a voluntary scheme, the government is 'confident' all of the UK's supermarkets will implement the new Guideline Daily Amount heavy labelling system by summer 2013.
But despite its pledge, the design of the new label is yet to be completely decided, according to the Department of Health.
'Wewelcome today's announcement as consumers need to have access to clear,consistent, at-a-glance information to help them to make informed choices about the food they buy and eat,' said Helen Davidson, chairman of The British Dietetic Association.
The announcement has also been welcomed by several UK supermarkets including Asda.
'Wehope the labels will be brought in on all products and we're really supportive of the government for announcing a standard approach on traffic light labels,' said an Asda spokeswoman.
Similarly, discounter Iceland confirmed it will be working closely with its suppliers to ensure the new labelling system is adopted across its brandrange as quickly as possible.
“We support this new hybrid traffic-light labelling system 100 per cent, and welcome the opportunityfor our customers to make easier comparisons between our products and those of other retailers and manufacturers,' said Nick Canning, Iceland director for people and customers.
Meanwhile, Richard Lloyd, the executive director of consumer group Which?, told BBC radio that the labelling system will be an effective tool for the UK's battle against obesity.
“It encourages retailers and manufacturers to reformulatetheir food so that there are fewer red lights on the pack, and that will be a built-in extra step towards tackling things like obesity that are costing the UK billions of pounds every year,' said Lloyd.
However,the voluntary system has not been welcomed by everybody in the food industry with Nestlé, which produces a range of fruit yoghurts as well as chocolate bar favourites such as Milky Bar, critical of the announcement.
A company statement read: 'We do not support the traffic-lights system because it focuses only on negative aspects of nutrients and does not offer sufficient factual information.
The food giant added that it would now be looking internally at whether colour-coded GDAs would be useful to consumers.
