We believe it is important for you to have all of the information you need to make informed choices about the food you eat.
We have made a commitment to provide customers with more helpful, meaningful and consistent nutritional information. As part of this, we intend to display, by the end of 2010:
- calories on front of pack as Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) for all products excluding our gifting range
- the big 8 nutrients (calories, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar, fibre and salt) per 100g and per serving on the back of pack, with GDAs for calories, sugar, fat, saturated fat and salt, for all products
We are committed to Be Treatwise, a confectionery industry labelling and education programme which aims to educate consumers about GDAs and how to enjoy a balanced diet and lifestyle. The front of pack ‘Be Treatwise – know your GDAs’ logo is used on our packs to direct customers to the detailed nutritional information panel on back of pack. To help our customers understand this information, we also fund the educational programme ‘What’s Inside Guide’ advertising campaign.
Understanding Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs)
Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) are approximate daily maximum guideline levels of calories and key nutrients, to enable adults to maintain a healthy balanced diet. They provide a simple tool to help you benchmark your food purchases and consumption to achieve a healthy balanced diet.
GDAs on packs summarise the contribution which individual foods make to your daily intake of calories, sugars, fat, saturates, and salt. This can help you to understand what is in the food you like to eat.
A personalised GDA would take into account your gender, weight and also activity levels, since all of these determine your daily calorie needs. Unfortunately it is impossible to include a wide range of variations on a label. The GDAs you see on food labels are based on dietary recommendations for an average adult. An average adult is defined as a female of healthy weight and average activity level with no special dietary needs.
GDAs are intended to be used as guidelines to help you to put the nutritional information on food labels into the context of your overall diet. Whilst it is OK to stick pretty close to the GDAs for calories if you are not trying to lose weight, the GDAs for sugars, fat, saturates and salt should be treated as maximum intakes.
Since they are only averages and not personalised, GDAs cannot be used as targets for individuals. They simply provide a guideline, which enables you to see how the foods you eat contribute to your nutritional intake.
How do I know how much I need of what nutrient?
This is where the GDA comes in and the tables below show you how much you need of each nutrient depending on your age and gender. You can use these tables to understand your nutrient intake throughout the day. Again these should only be used as approximations.
Please note that the GDA values represented on our packaging are those established by the Confederation of the food and drink industries of the EU (CIAA). These values are slightly different to UK GDA values established by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).
For all you need to know about the nutritional content of our products and to be able to compare this with the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) of key nutrients click here to search our Nutritional Information database.