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The Nutri-Score delusion: Europe's label obsession is hurting consumers
Researchers from Granada, Spain have shed new light on the accuracy of food labels
A fresh scientific warning has cast new doubt on the credibility of Nutri-Score. In late February, the University of Granada published the results of a recent study examining dozens of hot cocoa products sold in Spain, with the researchers finding no meaningful correlation between their Nutri-Score ratings and actual nutritional composition. Using advanced metabolomic analysis, the team concluded that the label’s simplified algorithm fails to capture the complexity of foods rich in bioactive compounds such as cocoa, potentially misleading consumers rather than informing them.
These findings strike at the heart of a system long promoted as a reliable guide for consumers, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. The implications are especially resonant in France, Nutri-Score’s home country, where public confidence in the label has been visibly eroding in recent months.
Indeed, across French television and newspapers, a quiet admission has begun to surface: Nutri-Score has failed. On TF1’s morning programme late last year, a journalist cautioned viewers not to blindly trust the now-ubiquitous green-to-red logo that claims to rate the nutritional value of every food. In Le Figaro, the same message reappeared in print: the label has reshaped supermarket shelves, but not for the better. What was once sold as a revolution in public health has become a symbol of how European regulation can mistake simplification for progress.
The problem is not that Nutri-Score lacks influence. It is that its influence is misplaced. The label’s algorithm reduces food to four variables – salt, sugar, fat and calories – calculated per 100 grams, as though every ingredient could be consumed in identical quantities and compared by weight alone. Olive oil, hard cheese and cured ham, pillars of balanced Mediterranean diets, are condemned for their natural composition. Industrial cereals and sauces, on the other hand, can earn flattering grades by adding fibre or diluting recipes with water. The outcome is an upside-down logic that rewards what can be engineered and penalises what is real.
By detaching food from culture, Nutri-Score replaces understanding with obedience. It encourages people to look for colours rather than ingredients, and it teaches producers that the quickest route to approval is to manipulate the formula, not to improve the product. The entire system functions as a nutritional illusion: precise enough to look scientific, simplistic enough to mislead.
Public health has not improved since the label’s introduction, but the market has changed profoundly. NielsenIQ data show that products rated A or B gained sales in 2023 while those marked C or below declined. A better grade means a better margin. Manufacturers now reformulate to please the algorithm. Nestlé’s well-known Chocapic cereals were altered precisely to climb from C to B – not to make children healthier, but to make the box more marketable. When a logo dictates recipe design, the consumer no longer chooses; the formula does.
Although Nutri-Score is technically optional, it has become unavoidable. Large retailers in France and the Netherlands demand it on packaging. In Belgium, supermarket chains have begun delisting products that score poorly. The result is coercion without legislation: producers must comply or disappear from view. For small- and medium-sized firms, this silent obligation is crippling. Each change in the algorithm requires new analyses, new packaging, and often new recipes. Those costs fall hardest on the very producers who preserve Europe’s food traditions.
Even major companies are turning away. In Switzerland, Nestlé, Migros and Emmi have all withdrawn the label after years of contradictory ratings that confused shoppers and eroded trust. In Germany, Dr Oetker publicly criticised the system when two almost identical products received different grades. These are not isolated complaints but evidence of a structural problem: a model too unstable to guide consumers and too blunt to guide industry.
What makes Nutri-Score so damaging is its pretence of neutrality. It is presented as a scientific instrument, but it is a political one. Policymakers promote it because it looks decisive and costs little, not because it works. The label’s success is measured in adoption rates, not in healthier outcomes. It creates the appearance of action while diverting attention from the real drivers of poor nutrition – inequality, education and access to fresh food.
The contradictions run deep. European agricultural policy invests billions to protect regional specialities through AOP and IGP designations, celebrating diversity as an economic and cultural strength. Yet the same governments endorse a label that downgrades those very products for being too rich, too salty or too fatty. Parmesan and Roquefort are condemned by the same state that funds their protection. This is not public health; it is bureaucratic incoherence.
The scientific weaknesses of Nutri-Score have been known for years. The model ignores micronutrients and beneficial fats. It judges by weight rather than portion. It treats every calorie as equal, regardless of source. Each new revision of the algorithm only exposes how arbitrary the ratings are. Olive oil was once rated C, then B; yogurt moved from B to C. If a product’s nutritional value depends on the latest software update, the credibility of the system collapses.
Europe’s policymakers often speak of sovereignty and resilience. True sovereignty begins with the ability to feed oneself according to one’s own knowledge, culture and standards – not by surrendering judgment to an algorithm designed in another country. If Brussels wants to strengthen public health, it should start by trusting citizens with information, not instructions. Teach people to read ingredients, to recognise balance, to value moderation. That is the foundation of lasting dietary change.
Nutri-Score was supposed to enlighten. Instead, it has infantilised. It encourages Europeans to see food as a series of green and red signals rather than a source of nourishment, craft and identity. The longer it dominates supermarket shelves, the further it distances people from the foods that define them.
Europe does not need an algorithm. It needs confidence in its own taste, science and judgment. The first step is admitting that Nutri-Score, far from helping consumers, has misled them. What began as a tool for clarity now stands as proof that the path to confusion is often paved with good intentions and colour codes.
Image: Unsplash
