Nestlé scraps Nutri-Score food label in Switzerland

Nestlé puts an end to the Nutri-Score for products sold in Switzerland Keystone-SDA

Nestlé plans to phase out its Nutri-Score nutrition labelling system on products sold in Switzerland. The food giant claims it is almost the last company in the country to use it.

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“Nestlé has decided to gradually withdraw the Nutri-Score from its local brands Cailler, Thomy, Leisi, Incarom, Chokito, Henniez, Nestea and Romanette,” it says. This is a decision that “applies only to these brands sold exclusively on the Swiss market”, according to an article on the Vevey-based food giant’s website, which was reported by Blick. A Nestlé Switzerland spokesperson confirmed to the AWP news agency that the publication was posted online on Friday.

The company said that “the withdrawal of the Nutri-Score from Nestlé’s local brands in Switzerland will be carried out gradually to avoid wasting packaging. It will be carried out brand by brand, from mid-2025 until the end of 2026”.

On the other hand, other Nestlé brands bearing one of the five letters from A to E and one of the colours ranging from green – the healthiest – to red – the least healthy – which “are sold in several markets, including Switzerland, will continue to display the label”.

Explaining its decision, Nestlé said: “This nutritional labelling has not had the hoped-for roll-out here in Switzerland: a number of companies never took part, major players pulled out, political support waned, and the result is that today we are practically the only ones still carrying the Nutri-Score in the product categories in which we are present”.

Migros and Emmi withdraw

In May 2024, Migros announced that it was gradually withdrawing the labelling from its products. For the Swiss supermarket chain, the Nutri-Score was still “too little known”, while incorporating it into packaging “requires a lot of effort”. Shortly afterwards, Lucerne-based milk processor Emmi also dropped the scheme from its Caffè Latte range.

Nestlé also deplores “the drop in political support in our country” for this system, which is supposed to enable consumers to “compare the nutritional value of products within the same category”, in order to “help them make more informed choices”.

The company will be adding QR codes containing “even more detailed information” to its packaging. At the same time, it “remains committed to supporting and implementing the Nutri-Score for eligible products across Europe”, where it is affixed to “thousands of products”, it said.

Translated from French by DeepL/sb

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