And the logo goes to ...: does a thumbs-up from a reputable organisation help you choose a healthier or 'better' food, or is it just a marketing ploy? We take a look. (Food endorsement logos).

Publication: Choice (Chippendale, Australia)

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Australian Consumers' Association

IN A NUTSHELL

* A well-recognised quality assurance program like the National Heart Foundation's tick, where foods are independently tested, have to meet set nutrition criteria and are spot-checked in the marketplace can help you choose a healthy food. But remember that an unendorsed product may be just as good, or even better.

* Logos from a health, scientific or sporting body displayed on a food label often aren't much help. There's a lot of variation in what they mean--sometimes it's purely a financial deal without any involvement of the endorser in the nutrition make-up of the food.

* Your best guide to ingredients and nutrition remains the food label. From the end of 2002 all labels will have to carry a nutrition panel and the percentage of key ingredients will have to be listed.

With over 20,000 food products on the supermarket shelves, doing the shopping can be a pretty daunting task, let alone trying to pick out healthy choices. It s hard for food manufacturers as well, with so many brands competing for your trolley. They need to use whatever leverage they can--and what better than a seal of approval from a reputable health, scientific or sports organisation?

We scoured the supermarket shelves and found a trolley-load of products with some form of endorsement. We checked out what's behind these endorsements to give you more insight next time you're shopping.

Product endorsements can be broadly divided into the following two categories.

QUALITY ASSURANCE PROGRAMS

The endorsement is awarded to products to certify they meet a set of standards. In this case any manufacturer can apply to the organisation awarding the tick, seal of approval or whatever, but the food has to meet the nutrition criteria to get the endorsement.

Examples include the National Heart Foundation tick of approval (the most far-reaching program), the International Diabetes Institute logo and the GI (glycaemic index) symbol--the latter two examples are only on a handful of foods.

Each program sets its own nutrition criteria (usually based on fat, salt and fibre levels, and sometimes sugar and the glycaemic index). You can be confident the product with the endorsement is as good as it claims, but you don't know that it's any...

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