The government’s flagship initiative to improve Australians’ diets is “working great” as a marketing tool for food manufacturers, but is not helping people make healthier choices, new research has found.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The research report found the percentage of products that displayed the health star rating dropped from 40% in 2019 to 36% in 2023, which makes it “virtually impossible” to meet theAs a “general trend,” the report found health star rating uptake was higher in food categories such as milk-based protein drinks where products scored a higher average rating, and lower in categories with lower average ratings, such as jams, confectionery and ice creams.
The researchers then compared which products display the health star rating and which do not, and if the rating was not displayed, the researchers generated a health star rating to see what the product would score.Jones said, “at the moment health stars is working great as a marketing tool for the food industry, because they can use it when products score highly”. But she said consumers “can’t really use it to make the best choices because they’re missing on more than half of products”.