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  • A study is 21 times more likely to find unfavourable results about the nutrition label Nutri-Score if the authors declare a conflict of interest or the study is funded by the food industry

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A study is 21 times more likely to find unfavourable results about the nutrition label Nutri-Score if the authors declare a conflict of interest or the study is funded by the food industry
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  • Published on: 24 April 2024
    Nutri-Score and publication bias: it is time for an independent evaluation of the scientific substantiation of Nutri-Score.
    • Stephan Peters, Manager Dairy, Nutrition and Health Dutch Dairy Association, The Hague, The Netherlands
    • Other Contributors:
      • Hans Verhagen, Owner consultancy

    Dear Editor,

    A commentary paper in your journal by Besancon et al. [1] suggests that industry is opposing the Nutri-Score system and hence preferentially publishes papers that support criticism on that front-of-pack label. It is concluded by Besancon et al. [1] that ‘a study is 21 times more likely to show unfavourable results if the authors have a conflict of interest or the study is funded by the food industry’. The figure of ’21 times’ is suggestive because there are too many unscientific assumptions behind this figure. One assumption is that a study is of poor quality or a biased study if it shows unfavourable results to Nutri-Score and/or if there is a mention of a Conflict of Interest, i.e. sponsored by industry. A second assumption is that studies that are carried out by the developers of Nutri-Score are by definition of good quality and unbiased. Moreover, we found out that Besancon et al. [1] did not conduct a comprehensive search of the literature: they just used the literature list on the website of the developers of Nutri-Score (https://nutriscore.blog/author/logonutriscore/ d.d. August 2023). This list was far from complete, i.e. it did not comprise all peer-reviewed papers about Nutri-Score, especially not the papers that are unfavourable for Nutri-Score. Finally, the analysis by Besancon et al. was limited to the outcome of the studies, without considering the detailed content of the pape...

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    Conflict of Interest:
    S.P. is employed at the Dutch Dairy Association. H.V. is an independent consultant at the Food Safety & Nutrition Consultancy (The Netherlands) and holds professorships at the Technical University of Denmark (Denmark) and the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland). Neither author has a past or current collaboration with the Nutri-Score. H.V. is a member of the international board of the Choices International Foundation since 2023. Until 2015, Both S.P. and H.V. were members of the independent scientific committee in the Netherlands supporting the former front-of-pack logo “het Vinkje”. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The Dutch Dairy Association is involved in the national discussion in the Netherlands about front-of-pack logos by submitting inputs into product reformulations and front-of-pack consultations of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.