What are front-of-pack traffic lights?
Traffic lights are the coloured label you see on the front of many UK food packs. They give shoppers a quick read on four things: fat, saturates, sugars and salt, plus the energy (calories).
Each one gets a colour:
- Green: low
- Amber: medium
- Red: high
So a shopper can glance at two packs of crisps and see which one is lower in salt without reading the back.
How the colours are decided
Each nutrient has set limits, based on the amount per 100 g. For food, for example:
- Sugars: green at 5 g or less, red above 22.5 g
- Fat: green at 3 g or less, red above 17.5 g
- Saturates: green at 1.5 g or less, red above 5 g
- Salt: green at 0.3 g or less, red above 1.5 g
Anything in between is amber. Drinks have lower limits, and there are extra rules for large portions.
An example
Say you make a granola with 18 g of sugar per 100 g. That's above 5 g but not above 22.5 g, so sugar shows amber. Cut it to 5 g and it turns green.
Do I need them?
Traffic lights are voluntary in the UK, but most major supermarkets expect them on own-brand and branded products, so many buyers will ask for them.
Canoli works out your traffic lights from your recipe and includes them in your label export.
Looking for front-of-pack traffic lights for your products? Try Canoli free for a month.
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