Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) food labels help you assess the calories, sugars, fat, saturates and salt that are suggested for a balanced diet.
GDA front-of-pack labels are based on percentages of Guideline Daily Amounts of fat, sugar and salt in a portion of the product.
Look for the Labels
GDA labelling is a system currently being used by some food manufacturers and retailers as an alternative to the colour coded traffic light labelling system recommended by the government.
Around 40% of UK retail food and drink packs use GDA labelling. Three major retailers including Tesco use the GDA system, as well as manufacturers including Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Danone, Kellogg's, Kraft, Masterfoods, Nestle, Quaker, Ryvita, Tate & Lyle, Unilever and Walkers.
What's Inside Campaign
The Food and Drink Federation has launched the What's Inside campaign on TV, online and in print, which runs between January and August 2007, to help consumers understand GDA labels.
You can visit the What's Inside Guide website to find out more about GDA labels, order or download a free booklet and use an online calculator.
The Tesco website has information about their own brand GDA labels.
Food Standards Agency Advice
The government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) welcomes the use of front-of-pack nutritional labelling by most manufacturers and retailers.
Some shoppers find extra GDA information useful and the FSA recommends that manufacturers and retailers add traffic light colours to their GDA schemes, so that consumers get the best of both worlds.
In this section you can find information about the FSA's new traffic light labelling system, used by retailers including Waitrose, Sainsbury's, the Co-op and Marks & Spencer.
