Nuval, the nutrition rating system that scores product from 0-100, announced this week the addition of a fourth supermarket chain as a partner – United Supermarkets, LLC of Lubbock, Texas, which operates 50 stores under the United Supermarkets, Market Street, and Amigos United names. Only 6 of the stores will be launching NuVal initially, beginning in March 2010. The rest will roll out during the remainder of 2010.

NuVal, originall called ONQI,  is a nutrition rating system developed by Dr. David Katz and other prominent scientists and nutrition experts in order to help shoppers make healthier choices at the supermarket. We explained the system and compared it to the (R.I.P) Smart Choices Program here.

NuVal is currently available at Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, and Meijer supermarkets in 19 states and over 500 supermarkets, according to company.

Coinciding with the PR, the NuVal website has been redesigned and it also includes a game called “Nutrition by the Numbers” where players have to rank 3 products by their NuVal score.

What you need to know:

This is a a small win for the NuVal licensing company, that had expected to be in thousands of supermarkets by this time when the program was announced last year. Nuval has yet to gain entry into one of the larger chains such as Kroeger, Publix, or Safeway.

We recently asked a NuVal board member why this is, but got a general answer that there is “a lot of work in progress.”

Here are a few thoughts on why NuVal is not as far ahead as it expected:

1. NuVal is not sponsored by food manufacturers, as Smart Choices was, and therefore its scores do not show on product packages. They appear on shelf tags together with the prices. Our sources tell us that this is causing a logistical nightmare as products are arranged on different shelves, prices change, and employees are not always aware of the new labeling.

2. NuVal’s competitors, especially Smart Choices and Guiding Stars, as well as individual efforts by some chains, have divided the industry, making it very hard for any player to gain substantially.

3. The recent inquiries by the FDA into “front of pack” nutrition labels may also have supermarkets sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see if a federally mandated standard will render existing systems useless or illegal.

4. Lastly, some supermarkets may find themselves in a conflict of interest. On one hand, providing consumers with more nutrition information is a good thing to do and builds loyalty. On the other, it may create a loss in revenue because customers will now buy less of the profitable junk foods and beverages. These profit-centers occupy substantial real estate in all modern supermarkets.

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether your local supermarket is participating in a nutrition labeling program or not, you can still make sound choices. The best advice is to buy minimally processed foods, with short, understandable ingredient lists. Make sure you get plenty of fruits and vegetables, limit your snacks to a very few, and opt to drink tap water instead of soft drinks.

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The Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy is one of the nation’s foremost leaders in the field of nutrition. They are hosting the 4th annual Friedman Symposium this weekend, a 2 day affair devoted to current affairs in the nutrition and diet arena.

Fooducate was lucky to partake in the conference as an online participant. (thank you Mark Krumm,  Director, Events & Marketing at Tufts, for helping set us up).

Judging from the titles and professional experience of the presenters and lecturers present, the people seated at the Jaharis Conference Center represented a highly capable group. Could some magic happen here that would help put America back on the health track? Read more…

We are blogging live have concluded live blogging from The 4th annual Friedman School Symposium at Tufts University – Nutrition Agenda 2009 & Beyond.

This morning’s topic is Nutrition Labeling and Scoring 2.0: What have we learned? What do we need to know?

Here is the list of speakers and presentations for this morning.

Click Refresh in your browser to get updated.

Our brief summary:

1. Each nutrition rating system was eloquently presented.

2. Inconvenient issues were swept under the rug.

3. The food industry still controls what goes on the food packages, not the FDA.

4. The tower of babel of front of pack labels will only confuse consumers more in the coming years. As Barbara Schneeman of the FDA said – what will a consumer think when she sees a product that is a “Smart Choice, did not get a guiding star , is high in calcium, but got a 30 NuVal score.”?

5. As it stands, we recommend ignoring front of pack labels, and focusing on minimally processed foods.

for the entire session … Read more…

The Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition is hosting its fourth annual nutrition symposium on Friday and Saturday (9/11-12/09). This year’s conference, Nutrition Agenda 2009 and Beyond, will dedicate a half  day to presentations and discussions about Nutrition Labeling and Scoring. (download program PDF here). Not surprisingly, the event is sponsored by the food industry.

The past year has seen an explosion in food labeling and scoring system introductions, and it will be very exciting to hear from the inventors and initiators of these systems what they’ve learned so far, consumer reaction, and of course what they think of their competition.

We’ll be participating online, and also live-blogging and twittering each session as it progresses.

Especially interesting to hear will be remarks from Dean of the nutrition school, Dr. Eileen Kennedy, who is also chairman of Smart Choices. She has been thrust into the spotlights after an interview last week in the New York Times where she said Froot Loops are a smart nutritional choice.

Hopefully there will be some Q&A sessions, so if any of you dear readers are interested in asking a question, drop us a line or send us a twit. We’ll try to accommodate…

Here’s the lineup for tomorrow morning:

8:30am NuVal Nutrition Scoring System Update
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP
Chief Science Officer, NuVal
Power in Numbers: How the breadth and depth of the NuVal system can position it to be the universal standard for all nutritional guidance systems.

9:00am Guiding Stars (Hannaford Supermarkets) Program Update
Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, Tufts University, Friedman School
The Guiding Stars Program: Evaluating and Extending Nutrition Profiling

9:30am Nutrient Rich Foods Index
Victor Fulgoni, PhD
Nutrition Impact, LLC
Nutrient Rich Foods Index and Relationship to Better Nutrition and Health Status

10:00am Refreshment Break – wonder if they’ll serve healthy snacks…

10:20am Smart Choices Program Update
Joanne Lupton, PhD
Texas A&M University
The hope is that the Smart Choices Program will be the most widely used front-of-pack labeling program in the United States, and ultimately assist people in making positive dietary changes to help enhance public health.

10:50am FDA Perspective on Labeling and Scoring
Barbara O. Schneeman, Ph.D.
Director of the Office of Nutrition, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration

11:20am Panel Discussion

Food Label are an immensely important issue in public health. They are also very controversial and misleading. That is why many aspects are tightly regulated by the FDA.

Unfortunately the sly food manufacturers have figured out ways to impress upon consumers only the good side of their products, misleading shoppers into buying processed foods disguised as healthy. Our fear is that some of the new labeling schemes will only worsen the situation.

Stay tuned for tomorrow…

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Have you ever wondered what’s inside that tasty TV dinner, instant pudding, or granola bar? How healthy, or not? Theoretically, we can learn a lot about a packaged food item just by reading its nutrition panel. Unfortunately for many of us, the nutrition information, ingredient list, and health claims on the package tend to confuse more than elucidate. As a result, consumers make misinformed purchase decisions. Several labeling initiatives have recently launched with a mission to simplify the nutrition information for consumers. (For some background, check our post about the history of food labels.)

A few days ago we reviewed the brand new Smart Choices Program. Today, a look at another front of package labeling system – NuVal (Nutritional Value Scoring System). NuVal was announced in late 2007 as ONQI (Overall Nutritional Quality Index). It is a scoring system that rates food on a scale of 1-100. The higher the score, the more nutritious the product.

The proprietary system consists of an algorithm that inputs values of over 30 different nutrients (i.e. protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, and minerals), and outputting a single score. The system looks at “nutrients to encourage”, such as fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as “nutrients to avoid” such as saturated fat and sodium.

The NuVal score is displayed at the supermarket on shelf tags and aisle signage, but not on the product package itself. NuVal was supposed to launch earlier this summer with several grocery chains. After a slight delay, Hy-Vee, a midwestern chain out of Iowa, was recently announced as a partner. Price Chopper has joined in the North East. Both are limited launches though – only several stores and several product categories are offered now.

NuVal / ONQI is the brainchild of Dr. David Katz, a Professor of Public Health Practice, and a nationally recognized expert in the fields of weight control and nutrition. He was previously Director of Medical Studies in Public Health, at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Katz assembled a top notch team of researchers to create the ONQI system, and it took them 2 years to do it. The grading algorithm itself has not been disclosed to the public.

NuVal LLC is  a joint venture of Yale university’s Griffin Hospital and Topco Associates, a privately held cooperative of food retailers and wholesalers. Unlike “Smart Choices”, food manufacturers are not part of this initiative, although the ONQI score requires additional information from manufacturers that is not found on food labels.

The good:

1. Simplicity. Everyone can relate to a numeric score of 1-100.

2. Uniformity. A single scoring system across all products enables consumers to compare apples to oranges, literally. (not that it would make any sense – both are nutritious and tasty).

3. Depth. A NuVal score of 1-100 provides more breadth to a product’s healthfulness than a Yes/No benchmark that appears only on selected items. Assuming all products in a supermarket will carry a NuVal score, consumers will readily compare between items in a category and choose the one with highest ranking.

4. Independence. Although not mentioned explicitly, it seems that food manufacturers were not directly involved in defining the NuVal scoring algorithm. Hopefully this sets a higher rating standard, more in favor of consumers than in the interests of manufacturers.

The not so good:

1. Mystery Scoring. NuVal is not disclosing its scoring mechanism. Smart Choices posted their criteria online, and those interested can understand exactly why one product is eligible for a check mark, and the other is not. According to NuVal, its algorithm is patent pending (which means it will be published by the US patent office once it is approved). If so, why not publish it now so consumers can be confident in their choices?

2. Manufacturer Buy In. Some of the nutrients used by the NuVal algorithm do not uniformly appear on food nutrition labels (i.e. omega-3, Total bioflavanoids, vitamin B12).  This means either the algorithm can’t calculate scores uniformly within a product category, or that all manufacturers need to provide additional nutrient information to NuVal, a third party. The chances for that happening are slim, especially for those already comitted to Smart Choices.

3. Retailer Buy In. What happens if best selling products in the supermarket get low scores? Will retailers willingly want to lose sales of soda pop and salty snacks because of their single digit score? Or are they betting that customers won’t care?

4. Placement. This may seem trivial, but in those supermarkets where price is displayed on the shelf instead of on the product, there are always mismatches. Put NuVal indicators on the shelves and you’ve added another level of complexity to bleary eyed associates stocking shelves at 4am. With Smart Choices, the approval seal is on the product package itself.

5. No personalization. This is an issue with Smart Choices as well. A middle aged diabetic has different dietary needs than a healthy teenager or a senior suffering from hypertension and trying to reduce sodium intake. How can a low-fat fruit yogurt have the same score for each of them? Ideally, a person would see a personalized score for each product.

Conclusion:

The teams behind NuVal and Smart Choices have made good headway in simplifying a very complex nutrition label and boiling it down to very simple indicator for consumer decision. Both systems sport some flaws, but having them at a supermarket seems to be better than not having them at all.

As the goal of both Smart Choices and NuVal is to become a nationwide standard, it will be interesting to see how the imminent competition between the two systems will play out. Also interesting to look for are the FDA’s actions. Will the FDA choose to create some sort of uniform benchmark like the UK’s Food Standard Agency Traffic Lights?

What do you think? Comments below.

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From Connecticut’s WTNH.com, an interview with Dr. David Katz, a leading nutrition expert, provide 5 great tips. Read the interview summary here, or watch the video

What to do at the supermarket:

1. Never Trust the Front of the Package.

2. Pay Attention to the First Ingredient.

3. Beware of Common Public Enemies.

4. Look for a Short Ingredient List.

5. Look for Whole Grains and Fiber.