With the immediate launch of Nutri-Score labelling on all REWE private-label processed foods, from ‘ja!’ to REWE’s own organic brand, REWE Bio, the company is making it even easier for customers to enjoy a balanced diet. From the green A to the red E – the simple Nutri-Score logo is visible on shelf labels, on external packaging, in the REWE app or the REWE online shop. This transparent system empowers REWE consumers to make more informed choices within product categories and provides useful guidance for a more balanced diet.
Nutri-Score is a voluntary food labelling system that enables consumers to assess a product’s nutritional information at a glance. Nutri-Score is designed as a traffic-light system comprising five levels. It assesses a product’s ingredients, calories, protein, fat and fibre as well as the proportion of fruit and vegetables it contains. The assessment is used to calculate a score. These range from products with a dark-green label and the letter A to those with a red label and the letter E. The Nutri-Score is based on 100 g or 100 ml of the product, making it easier for consumers to choose more nutritious products from a product category.
We backed the Nutri-Score system from an early stage because one of our explicit aims is to help our customers to make more informed food choices. From now own, they will therefore be able to see and compare nutritional information at a glance on our private-label products. The enhanced nutritional labelling can only offer added value to our customers if all products in our range are labelled with the Nutri-Score, and this requires the same commitment from the entire sector – retailers and the food industry alike. In the interests of transparency and providing full information to our customers, we look forward to all food producers labelling their products with the Nutri-Score,
says Hans-Jürgen Moog, the REWE Group’s Executive Board Member for merchandising.
Hans-Jürgen Moog: Many people want to eat more healthily, particularly at the start of the year. Our current nutritional campaign, ‘Easier ways to eat better’, is one of the ways to show them that making informed food choices is no more time-consuming or expensive.
At present, the Nutri-Score is available via the REWE app scan function or the in-store shelf label for all private-label products. The Nutri-Score will be gradually rolled out on the front of private-label packaging.
REWE is actually going beyond the Nutri-Score system by assigning a new nutritional symbol, the REWE ErnährWert, to many of the REWE recipes on the company’s website. The Nutri-Score differs from the ErnährWert value, in that the Nutri-Score assesses foods and products on the basis of their ingredients and nutrients, whereas the REWE recipes take account of all the ingredients, their respective nutrients, and the method of preparation. The preparation method is particularly important in terms of the nutritional balance of a dish: whether a potato is raw, boiled or fried will affect how nutritious the end result is. The ErnährWert shows at a glance the extent to which the dish meets the current German Society for Nutrition recommendations, using a scale from one to ten.
Supermarket shoppers face new purchasing decisions on a daily basis and are guided by a range of criteria. Aside from the visual appearance of a product or consumer confidence, shoppers’ decisions about whether or not to make a purchase are also influenced by the product’s nutritional values. Almost three quarters of consumers say that they would take heed of a traffic-light system such as Nutri-Score because they want to eat healthily, and 70 percent* of them say that the Nutri-Score makes it easy to compare products. (*Source: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1055490/umfrage/umfrage-zum-interesse-an-der-lebensmittelampel/)
REWE has been committed to helping customers make informed decisions about their food choices for many years and Nutri-Score and the ErnährWert are simply the latest developments in this approach. In 2018 and 2019, REWE focused on reducing the salt and sugar content of its products. The recipes of several hundred private-label products have since been modified, achieving a two figure percentage reduction in sugar on average. It is our goal to modify the recipes of our private-label products in the long term without this noticeably affecting flavour.
