Despite its widespread appeal, Nutri-Score has faced pushback in several countries, including Italy, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Authorities in these nations argue that the system unfairly penalizes traditional products, such as those commonly found in the Mediterranean diet. Critics contend that Nutri-Score oversimplifies food evaluations by focusing on select nutritional factors, which can distort consumer understanding of a product’s overall health value.
In addition to governmental objections, major brands like Danone, Heineken, Unilever, and Arla Foods have expressed reluctance to adopt Nutri-Score on their product packaging. These companies argue that the algorithm used to calculate the scores doesn’t align with their national dietary guidelines, or that recent changes to the system have downgraded their products to lower categories, resulting in what they believe to be unfairly low scores.
Nutri-Score, a front-of-pack label (FOPL) system, uses a color-coded, traffic-light-like design to rate the nutritional quality of packaged foods based on their fat, sugar, salt, and calorie content per 100 grams or millilitres. A “Green A” signals the healthiest option, while a “Red E” represents the least nutritious.
Recent revisions to the Nutri-Score system have reclassified dairy and plant-based beverages. For example, solid yogurt, considered a meal food, is classified differently from drinkable yogurt, which is viewed as a beverage often consumed between meals, moving it from the general food category to the beverage category. This shift had a significant impact on product ratings, as the algorithm applies different nutritional criteria depending on the product category. As a result, certain dairy products that previously held high ratings of “A” or “B” dropped to lower ratings of “D” or “E,” largely due to their sugar content or the use of alternative sweeteners.
In the beverage category, only water maintains the top rating of a “Green A.”