Swiss Organic Labels

[SebSwiss]

What

• Would be great if the Swiss organic labels could be added in the database - cf. WWF "ranking" in the doc. attached
• 2015-11-Bericht-Lebensmittellabel-fr.pdf

Proposed solution

Organic label list to be completed with Swiss ones

Part of

• 🌍 Make Open Food Facts work well in all countries in the world #5690

[SebSwiss]

Based on WWF study, see attached what the scores could look like...

Ecoscore+OFF - Swiss Labels scores.xlsx

[alexgarel]

@teolemon and @stephanegigandet, @SebSwiss has done a though work to pave the road to implement eco-score in Switzerland.

[stephanegigandet]

Hi @SebSwiss , I'm asking the other members of the Eco-Score consortium for feedback on how we can add labels to the Eco-Score formula.

Is the full analysis from "Fondation Pusch en collaboration avec le WWF Suisse, Helvetas
et la Fédération romande des consommateurs (FRC)" public? (not just the summary)

It may be useful in order to take into account the criterias that are the most relevant to the Eco-Score. e.g. the Eco-Score really focuses on the environment, and not on other things like social aspects (e.g. fair trade), or animal welfare (which are of course important topics but that can be highlighted separately).

Your proposal contains many labels, maybe it would be worth to focus first on a few logos, maybe the ones that are the most used in Switzerland: https://ch.openfoodfacts.org/labels

[SebSwiss]

Hey @stephanegigandet,

Thanks for the follow-up!

I contacted WWF to get access to the full report - waiting for their feedback.
More details can be found here: https://www.wwf.ch/fr/guide-labels-alimentaires

As for the labels to select, not sure which are the most used (and the number of references in OFF seems rather limited for now in Switzerland) - on top of my head, with limited rational, I would select: BIO/BIO suisse, Natura-Beef, Demeter, FairTrade Max Havelaar, MSC/ASC, Rainforest Alliance, IP Suisse, AB...

[stephanegigandet]

Thanks @SebSwiss

It would be great to have the full report indeed.

So for instance, Max Havelaar is focusing on fair trade, not really on the environment. "Si Max Havelaar pose des exigences supérieures à la moyenne concernant les aspects sociaux, les dispositions relatives à l'environnement sont, par comparaison, au-dessous de la moyenne." So even though it is "Vivement recommandé" by the WWF, it may be less relevant for the Eco-Score.

[SebSwiss]

Hey @stephanegigandet,

I received the attached report (in German). Will go through and try to rank the labels according to their environmental impact (thanks for the clarification).

Hintergrundbericht_Labelfuehrer.pdf

In the meantime, could you please explain how were the scores assign to the relevant labels in the Eco-Score?

Thanks

[SebSwiss]

Hey @stephanegigandet,

The english version of the WWF/FRC report is attached (google translate, so not perfect).

Focusing on the environmental impact only, the labels are assessed based on 4 sub-categories: water consumption, soil preservation, biodiversity, climate protection/energy efficiency.

I'll let you go through the report but it is interesting to note that the EU-French labels underperform most (if not all) other labels, mostly because they include few or no requirements in terms of irrigation, biodiversity and climate protection. As a quick & dirty conclusion, the EU label being awarded a bonus of 15pts in the current Eco-Score methodology, we could consider that all labels ranked above the EU-French ones (excl. Coop Naturafarm) in the WWF report should be awarded a max. bonus of 20pts. However, there are some inconsistencies b/w both methodologies concerning Max Havelaar, UTZ, Rainforest, ASC/MSC (i.e. fair trade and/or product-focused labels) which get points, using the WWF methodology, in the water and biodiversity categories mostly.

I can't go much further in the analysis as I don't really know how the bonus points were set in the Eco-Score, but it would be great if we could discuss it and somehow achieve to reconcile the different approaches!

WWF - Swiss food labels guide (2015).docx

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