Two bottles of sparkling water. One, a Pam's product has two Health Stars. The other, a Schweppes brand, has 4.5.
By Susan Edmunds of rnz.co.nz
It prompted one shopper to email RNZ and ask: What is going on? Shouldn't water with the same ingredients have the same rating? And why isn't water five stars?
Foodstuffs said in this instance, it was a labelling problem.
"The rules changed in 2020, and plain water is now automatically given a five-star rating, while unsweetened sparkling water gets 4.5," a spokesperson said.
"We can see why this looks confusing at first glance. Health Star Ratings follow a standard approach across New Zealand and Australia.
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"Most products are calculated, but some, like plain water and unsweetened flavoured water, including sparkling, are automatically given high ratings.
"In this case, the rating on our Pam's sparkling water is out of date following a 2020 update to the rating system. The product hasn't changed, but the label hasn't caught up.
"That's on us, and we're fixing it, so customers have clear and consistent information."
But experts say the water situation highlights some of the confusion that still persists about the scheme.
Health Star ratings are set using a standard system that considers the balance of energy, saturated fat, sugar and sodium, offset against protein and fibre. Points are also awarded for fruit, vegetable, nut and legume content.
Consumer NZ senior research writer Belinda Castles said Foodstuffs was quite late in updating its water rating.
But she said, generally, products were displaying the star rating that the calculator suggested they should.
She said the main issue with the scheme was that it was voluntary.
"Only 36% of the products that it's intended for have the rating so that's not particularly helpful.
"Consumers need to be able to look at the food supply as a whole because the consensus is the Health Star rating is useful. We don't have time to be looking at all the nutrition information panels on the back."
She said there was concern that some companies were cherry picking their healthier products to have the star.
"They're going 'ok we've got this five-star product we'll put the rating on our fours and fives but we'll leave it off the ones and twos'."
She said people should also only use it to compare similar products. "The calculator has slightly different calculations depending on what the product is. Like if it it's a cooking oil, for example versus a dairy product versus a cereal… use it to pick a healthier cereal, don't use it to pick a cooking oil versus a cereal."
She said the intended target was for 70% of products to have a rating at the end of last year and it was only halfway there.
But Rob Hamlin, from the University of Otago marketing department, said the regime was ineffective when it came to driving consumer choice.
"This disconnect between our legislative powerhouses with regards to nutritional labels and reality has led to some very unfortunate outcomes.
"The Heart Foundation tick is what's known as a binary cue… It was an image that communicated by being there or not being there… we do know the Heart Foundation tick was effective because it was much more similar to the pictorial nominal cues that the food industry used to effectively communicate with consumers."
The Heart Foundation tick was discontinued in 2016.
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