Has food label Nutri-Score passed its expiry date in Switzerland?

Five years on from its adoption, the nutrition labelling system has seen its popularity wane and finds itself in the crosshairs of legislators and the Swiss cheese lobby. In May, Switzerland’s largest dairy processor, Emmi, and the second-biggest supermarket chain, Migros, announced they were ditching the Nutri-Score label that rates packaged food products for their nutritional value and compares them with similar goods. Their decisions, made for different reasons, have raised concerns at Switzerland’s food safety watchdog but add to the growing disillusion with the five-colour traffic light-style labelling system, which is intended to allow consumers to compare the overall nutritional value of food products from the same group and from different manufacturers. Lucerne-based Emmi, whose dairy products include milk drinks, lattés, cheeses, and yoghurts, started trialing Nutri-Score on its best-selling Caffè Latte product in Switzerland in 2021 with a view to rolling it out across ...