Voting opens for Most Misleading Food branding

Foodwatch, the food watchdog organization, is opening the voting for its annual 'Gouden Windei' (Golden Wind Egg) competition, which asks consumers to reveal what they believe is the product that uses the biggest misinformation on its packaging, compared to its contents. This year, the nominees include foods as well as drinks that practice false advertising. Knorr's Farmer Vegetable Soup, claims it doesn't add flavor enhancers, when it actually contains yeast extract, which is legally seen as a flavor enhancer, as well as glutamate. Albert Heijn's farm-fresh, "following old Dutch recipe" stuffed beef contains water, several sugars and seven E-numbers. BelVita Breakfast Multigrain is "presented as an ideal breakfast that 'gives energy for the whole morning', when it is actually a sweet with 22 percent sugar. Rosita's Surinamese Roti's claims to be "authentic Surinamese roti's", when they come from a tortilla factory. Foodwatch says it has nothing to do with Suriname. and Capri-Sun Multivitamin from Coca Cola only has 12 percent fruit juice from concentrate, contains almost as much sugar as Coke and misleads with the text: 'drink with fruit juice and spring water'. The nominees are based on the complaints that Foodwatch receives on a daily basis from consumers. "Food manufacturers get a lot of room for their misleading marketing at this moment. This is because they are barely controlled", says Meike Rijksen, campaign leader at Foodwatch. She says that the self-regulation measure from the government does not work. "Now, the food industry sets its own 'boundaries' for its marketing, and the consumer pulls the short straw. By way of the Gouden Windei competition, we want to show that this self-regulation does not work, and call on the government to confront the practice of misleading", Rijksen says. Consumers can vote until the 30th of September, and the big winner will be announced on the 1st of October.