Jamie Oliver has stoked up the tension in his relationship with Sainsbury's by opting for a nutrition labelling system for his new food range favoured by Tesco.
The celebrity chef, who nets £1.2 million-a-year from his advertising deal with Sainsbury’s, was last month obliged to apologise to the chain and its staff for not participating in a TV debate on battery-farmed chickens.
Now Oliver's new range of sauces, oils and salads will not use the "traffic light" food nutrition guides employed by Sainsbury’s, but instead feature the single-colour labels used by Tesco, which show fat, salt and sugar as a percentage of the recommended guideline daily amount (GDA).
Jane Hilton, head of marketing for Fresh Retail Ventures, which markets the Jamie Oliver food range, told The Grocer: "Both labelling schemes were looked at, but we decided that GDAs gave clearer information than traffic lights to allow consumers to make a decision."
A spokesman for Oliver said: "The food range has nothing to do with Sainsbury's, it's a totally separate thing... There's no connection at all - there isn't a slight because it's just not relevant."
A Tesco spokesman said: "If this is true, then we are glad that somebody of Jamie's experience and prestige has come round to our view."
