Annual Review 2008: Leading from the front
Salman Amin, President, PepsiCo UK
FDF's Health and Wellbeing Steering Group Chair:
Maintaining the momentum behind nutrition labelling based
on Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) was our main priority
throughout 2008. 
We continued our consumer campaign
which was designed to raise awareness, understanding and
usage of GDA labelling – and research consistently shows
we are tracking well on these metrics.
As well as consumer campaigning, our GDA advocacy
work has included a strong focus on political engagement.
An Early Day Motion praising industry's work on GDA
labelling attracted widespread support in Parliament, while
the Conservative Party made a strong policy statement in
favour of the GDA approach to nutrition information during
the year.
Meanwhile, Government has increasingly focused on the
importance of providing information on calories per portion
– which is at the heart of a new initiative for caterers. FDF
agrees universal calorie labelling is a natural starting point
in the debate about how we improve the food literacy of
consumers. After all, calorie per portion information has
always been a core element of the GDA labelling system.
In all, 80 food firms are voluntarily providing GDA labelling
on the front of their packs. And we remain convinced that
this approach is helping to improve the food literacy of
consumers, which is why this labelling system is now being
used across Europe.
More information