“Many of the manufacturers’ advertising promises are pure lies,” said Manuel Wieman of the Foodwatch organization, quoted by Deutsche Welle. “The food industry realized that the climate crisis and mountains of plastic waste are important public issues and began to use them for their marketing purposes,” he adds.
According to him, many manufacturers are trying to convince consumers that by buying their products, they are unlikely to contribute to saving the world. “The food industry spews out so many different advertising lies that consumers have no chance of revealing them,” the expert says.
The truth in letters
There is an urgent need for better laws to protect consumers from fraud, Wiman is convinced. According to him, the German government should prohibit advertising such healthy foods that are full of sugar. Or goods that are harmful to the environment are declared “climate neutral”. The same applies to cases where information about the true origin of the goods is hidden. “It’s time to stop this “green” advertising lies,” Wiman urges.
The Association of Food Producers in Germany claims to support the introduction of uniform criteria and labeling of food products throughout the EU. But the first such proposal of the European Commission is expected only in 2024.
Sabrina Schultz from the consumer protection headquarters in Berlin is not going to wait that long. She recommends that consumers do not pay attention to the trade name on the front of the package at all “”this name may be just a fiction and serves mainly for advertising purposes.
The actual name of the product is written in the text with letters on the back of the package, where you can read a neutral description of the product“ “
According to this description, you can judge the quality of the corresponding product. For example, a strawberry milk drink should contain real strawberries, while a strawberry-flavored milk drink can only contain strawberry flavor.
Reading text with printed letters annoys many users. But only in this way it is possible to determine what exactly the product contains. “Someone who only looks at the front of the package is also buying things that they don’t really want,” warns Sabrina Schultz.
Fitness muesli or sugar bomb?
Expert Manuel Wieman agrees with this assessment: “When they buy, consumers mostly focus on the label. Therefore, the packages, and especially their front side, are full of advertising promises, which, however, are almost impossible to rely on”“
The food industry is able to give some kind of sugar bomb the name “Fitness muesli”. Or print on the packages some own signs of quality and climate neutrality. According to Wiman, identifying such scammers is often too difficult a task. However, he was motivated by recent success. The concern wanted to advertise its coffee capsules as compostable and biodegradable. However, after a Foodwatch warning, this was thwarted.
“Coffee capsules are a huge waste of resources. And to advertise disposable packaging as particularly resistant is a brazen attempt at deception,” says Viman. He hopes that politics, consumer advocates and consumers themselves, with joint efforts, will be able to put the food industry under pressure.
