Meeting demands Kishor Patel Houghton Trading South East London





?Our customers are expecting some kind of food labelling to come into force in the near future. There is a lot of awareness about healthy eating at the moment and we are moving in the direction where consumers will want more of it. Traffic-light labelling on certain products will have an affect on sales - there is no shadow of a doubt. If there is a red light on the packet the customer is less likely to purchase it but the products that carry green lights still have to be tasty in order to get people to buy them. It will be down to us as suppliers to stock the products that consumers demand. Convenience retailing will be at the front line, and especially the independent trade.

Informed consumers Chelliah Arudcaelvan Newsflash C-store South London





?Customers are no doubt becoming more interested in the labelling of the products they buy, which is why products carry wording such as low-calorie or diet on the packaging. These days they don't just pick up a product and buy it. They look at the ingredients list and make their decisions based on what a product contains. Traffic- light labelling is good because it gives consumers a better idea about a product. Traffic lights are more effective than GDA labelling because they attract the eye more. However, I don't think sales of products that carry red or amber traffic lights will be affected too much because people will always buy certain products despite what is in them.

Traffic lights better Ashok Ary Bennetts International South London





?We have definitely been selling more healthy products in our store over the past couple of years because customers are becoming more concerned with their health. I think traffic-light labelling will prove to be more effective than GDA labelling because people can read the traffic light signs more easily and the different colours mean it is quicker to understand what is in a product. Our customers tend to look at certain products such as crisps, chocolate bars and drinks quickly and so having traffic-light labelling on the front of packs will help them make the right choices. That said, I still think that many consumers don't really care that much about this type of labelling on the products they buy.

While retailers and food manufacturers agonise over which of the two rival front-of-pack schemes to go for - the FSA-backed Traffic Lights scheme or GDAs supported by the FDF - the independent sector is oblivious to the issue, according to our latest survey. This is because they don't think either will affect sales of any products they sell.

More than half of shop owners had never even heard of traffic-light labelling while 30% were not familiar with GDAs. Few branded suppliers have put traffic lights on the front of packs and this scheme is only really used by supermarkets, which are using different variants of the FSA scheme.

However, GDAs are backed by 24 major manufacturers, as well as four retail chains. They appear on big sellers for independents on brands such as Coca-Cola, Kit Kat, Kellogg's, Cadbury, Walkers and Mars. Given all the recent media coverage and TV advertising, it is surprising 64% of shop owners had not even heard of traffic lights.

Ninety-six per cent of independents said they didn't think their sales would be affected by either labelling scheme. "We sell lots of sweets, chocolates and crisps, which people already know can be bad for them if they eat too much," said one independent. "Putting a red light or percentages on the label is not going to make any difference to whether they buy them or not."

"Using the message 'Smoking Kills' on cigarette packets hasn't worked with smokers so what is a coloured light going to do to someone who wants to buy a Mars bar?," asked another.

Many independents thought the impulse nature of their business was why labelling schemes wouldn't make much, if any, difference to customers' purchasing decisions.

"If they want a bar of chocolate, they want a bar of chocolate," said one. "It's a load of nonsense," added another. "Health- conscious people already know about these things.

"When people come in my shop they generally dash in, get what they want and go. I'm not sure many will stop and look closely at the product."

Neither labelling scheme got a vote of confidence from shop owners in this survey - only one in 10 supported traffic-light labelling, while one in three preferred GDAs. In each case it seems few independents think this is an issue for them to get excited about.

"I've got a million things to worry about before stupid labelling schemes," said one shop owner. "And I'm sure a lot of my customers feel exactly the same."