Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing warning labels for ultra-processed foods to help consumers make more informed choices.

Food labelling rules require that information should not be misleading to consumers and should allow consumers to make informed choices. The rules include the requirement to list ingredients in detail on all prepacked food along with nutrition labelling which sets out the energy value and amounts of fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt. By viewing this information, consumers can know what is in a food and its key nutritional properties. A requirement to add a warning to food labels is reserved for cases where there is an identified and specific risk to all or a section of consumers, about which they need to be alerted. Such warnings are included in food information regulations relating, for example, to the presence of caffeine above certain levels or aspartame being a source of Phenylalanine as a warning for sufferers of Phenylketonuria (PKU). We are not considering warning labels for Ultra-processed food.