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Home > Check the Label Campaign

Check the Label Campaign

Vanessa Gellatly from Northamptonshire County Council Trading Standards Service describes the project delivered by East Midlands authorities which aimed to get consumers to ‘check the labels’ when shopping.

Project Date: Food Awareness Week  19-26th October 2005

Location: Throughout the East Midlands area

Aims and objectives

The aim of the initiative was to increase consumer awareness of food labelling through the use of specifically designed leaflets, postcards and fridge magnets. ‘Check the labels’ was EMCOTS theme for this year’s Food Awareness Week.

For the last three years Trading Standards Authorities in the East Midlands have run a Food Awareness Week to raise the public profile of food standards issues throughout the Region by promoting food standards.

Organisations involved

• Northamptonshire County Council
• Nottinghamshire County Council
• Derbyshire County council
• Lincolnshire County Council
• Leicestershire County Council
• Nottingham City Council
• Leicester City Council
• Derby City Council
  
  

Target Group

Consumers within the East Midlands area.

Methodology

The group identified that consumers may be having difficulty in following the governments healthy eating recommendations and wanted to bridge the gap between healthy eating messages and purchasers buying behaviour by providing help in understanding the information printed on food labels, including ingredients list and nutrition information and so decided to produce and design an information leaflet.

Each leaflet was accompanied by one of 4 different a variety of fridge magnets which carried a summary of recommended intakes of salt, fat or sugar that would relate to the messages contained in the leaflet. A folding postcard was also provided which copied the information on the fridge magnets but could be tucked into a wallet or purse for easy reference when shopping.

By providing this information our aim was to deliver simple food labelling guidance along with basic health messages, as the literature also included practical advice on healthy eating and nutrition.

The group saw the current health literature and did not want to design a leaflet which simply reiterated healthy eating messages and did not explain them in terms of product labelling that were already available, and therefore on 2nd August 2005 a meeting was held with Catherine Lamb a Public Health Adviser from Northampton’s Primary Care Trust to discuss the leaflets that were already in circulation and available through the NHS. It was decided that the leaflet should be both an explanation of labels and a summary of healthy eating advice. The Food Standards Agency guidance on "What’s a little" and "What’s a lot" of salt, fat and sugar were seen as the keystone in the bridge between healthy eating and labelling. It was decided that the leaflet should also be eye-catching and appealing to a wide age range in order to successfully promote the health message and be delivered in a colourful and exciting format. We were also able to gauge how helpful and informative this type of leaflet would be from a health perspective. It was agreed that this leaflet would also be useful for health professionals who work to promote healthy eating.

‘The Comic Company’ were used to design and publish the information as they had experience in health promotion materials. It was important from the beginning that the material was to be as exciting and vibrant as possible so that people would want to pick up and read the leaflet and hopefully keep it for future reference in the kitchen and when shopping.

The delivery of Food Awareness week varied throughout the East Midlands. Sure Start Centres, Supermarkets, GP & Dental surgeries, parks and libraries were visited where the leaflets, magnets and postcards were distributed. A primary school ran a healthy lunchbox session and incorporated the leaflet into that. During the week, approximately 40,000 leaflets, magnets and postcards were given out. Packs were made up of each of the materials, and enclosed a Consumer Direct card reminder. Packs going into some ‘child environments’, also enclosed a bookmark and stickers with 5-a-day messages from the Comic Company, but those costs were borne by that authority. Most of the events were successful drawing in the attention of consumers of varying ages. Distribution of the information aided in targeting health inequalities in vulnerable groups; for example SureStart, located in areas of health inequality, provide support to parents and carers of young children, they run occasional health promotion and healthy eating events, cooking demonstrations etc; they also have outreach workers who give support to parents and carers in their homes and this was seen as valuable in helping convey the message. The leaflet was welcomed by dentists and GP surgeries, who promptly called back to if any more copies were available. Subsequently one authority received a request to attend a secondary school’s health and activity day and help children understand food labels, and was able to obtain an article on the leaflet and reproduce the magnet designs in their County Council’s magazine which was delivered to households in the County.

The Pen Green Centre is a Sure Start centre in Corby, Northamptonshire. The centre was chosen because it is one of the newest and largest centres within the County.
An information stand was set up in the centre for a period of 3 hours and manned by two Food and Health Authorised Officers. There was a lot of interest in the stand and the packs from parents, carers and children

The parents and employees at the centre provided some very useful feedback verbally. All of the comments received were positive and many were thankful for receiving the information. Many appeared to be unaware that food labels contain information that can help them make better choices and in some cases the information we provided reinforced the parents existing knowledge.

The Camrose Centre is a Sure Start Centre in Northampton. At the centre it was possible to interact with parents and carers and talk about food labelling. In addition to the information stand, Food and Health staff organised a smoothie making session to encourage children to try different types of fruit; this proved to be a very popular event!

The display was also taken to Morrisons Supermarket in Northampton (with their permission) where shoppers could be targeted directly with the information. Staff manning the stand also helped shoppers to check the labels of prepacked food in their trolley, so that they were better informed about the food that they were purchasing.

Funding

Although the bid to the Food Standards Agency for funding was unsuccessful, this activity was unique for EMCOTS in that for the first time every authority agreed to contribute to pooled financial resources to meet the cost of design and printing the leaflets, postcards and fridge magnets. In addition a grant toward costs was negotiated by the group from GOEM (The Government Office of the East Midlands). Some authorities also purchased additional ‘healthy eating’ promotional material such as stickers and bookmarks. The amount of funding naturally capped the quantities of resources that could be bought. 40,000 leaflet packs had to stretch across a population of some 4.2 million, so targeting distribution had to maximise effectiveness.

Management & Staffing

Approx 30 hours were spent agreeing the design for the leaflets etc. Somewhat more was spent designing and refining the leaflet so that it resulted in a leaflet densely packed with useful information. Some information stands were unmanned and other manned by Trading Standards Food and Health staff typically for 3 hours at a time, dependant on the location and available support.

Sustainability

Food Awareness Week is an initiative that has run for 3 years and we plan to continue each year, varying the format and objectives: the health agenda remains a topical stimulus for activities that demonstrate the relevance to consumers the relevance to consumers of the work done by trading standards on food quality, composition and labelling.

However, this "Check the Labels" project was fixed term, defined by developing the resources and disseminating them, and also in that the funding covered the design and printing costs for 40,000 packs of leaflet/card/magnet was finite. No commitment was made at that stage to take the initiative further but it was hoped that other organisations might be willing to purchase resources if they meet their health promotion needs. There are opportunities to link up with other health promotion work in the region such as healthy schools, where other funding streams may be accessible. We were fortunate to receive GOEM funding on this occasion, but the question of further funding from there has yet to be broached with them.

It is clear that there is a demand for the resources, but they may need to be reviewed and revised, particularly if the Food Standards Agency Traffic Light Front-of-Pack scheme becomes well-established.

Evaluation

Feedback questionnaires were distributed by most of the authorities in order to determine whether the information provided by the leaflet, magnet and display stand were useful, if the design was appealing and if the magnet would be retained for future use (since this component was relatively more expensive). Only a small percentage of completed questionnaires were received, although the results obtained were very good, with 41% of responses indicating that the designs of the materials were ‘interesting and imaginative’ and 100% of respondents considered the messages given in them were ‘very useful’ or ‘useful’.

Comments made on the feedback form included;

"I try to give my family healthy food- I found the pocket size leaflet useful and easy to carry when I go the supermarket- I was shocked at how much salt and sugar is in supposedly healthy food"

"Very useful and informative and quite a shock to find out all the values of sugar, salt and fat in foods"

Requests for further copies of the leaflet have been received from GP’s, Dental Surgeries, and health & Education professionals demonstrated their satisfaction with the materials.

Lessons Learnt

• Some obstacles encountered were;
• Time-consuming- design took far longer to get right than anticipated. To plan the launch of a leaflet that was still to be finalised presented some problems.
• Lack of experience of health promotion.
• Very limited time personnel and time availability in Trading Standards Services to make the desired impact.
• Difficulty in spreading the word to organisations that would be prepared to buy the designed leaflet for their uses. There are lots of organisations who would take them for free!

Things which we would do differently next time;

• Aim to complete the design process sooner so that promotional activities can be negotiated & planned with others able to see the product and so better understand what we planned to achieve.
• Gain greater involvement of PCT & Education health promotion professionals in the dissemination & delivery of the resources since these people have the experience in achieving effective delivery; and perhaps attempt to draw in funding from these areas.
• Extend media coverage across the region through photo opportunities and better advance notification.
• Attempt to work more closely with the Food Standards Agency and gain funding- we suspect that the project would have had to have been at a more advanced stage to convince the Food Standards Agency fund- holders that this project was worth supporting.
• Include promotional posters and other large scale materials in the costing to facilitate displays.