Health Star Rating awareness campaign

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman and Food Safety Minister Jo Goodhew welcome the Health Star Rating awareness campaign which starts this week.

“Promoting the Health Star Rating system is one of 22 initiatives in the Childhood Obesity Plan which was launched in October 2015,” says Dr Coleman.  

“Being overweight or obese is expected to overtake tobacco as the leading preventable risk to health in New Zealand in the next 12 months. We’re now one of the first OECD countries to have a target and a comprehensive plan.

“The Health Star Rating takes the guesswork out of reading nutrition labels when buying and choosing food. It helps parents and caregivers make better informed, healthier choices.

“This campaign will help to increase consumers’ understanding and awareness of the Health Star Rating system.”

The voluntary labelling system uses star ratings of ½ to 5 stars to measure the overall nutritional content and healthiness of packaged foods. Foods that are lower in saturated fat, sugar or sodium (salt), and/or higher in fibre, protein, fruits, vegetables, nuts or legumes will have more stars.

“Health Star Ratings are encouraging manufacturers to reformulate their products to improve their ‘star rating’ which leads to healthier products being available to consumers,” says Mrs Goodhew.  

“There is strong support from manufacturers and retailers for the labelling system. Around 1,000 products with Health Star Ratings are now on supermarket shelves.

“This initiative is one of the ways we’re working with the food industry to improve food labelling and make healthy choices easier for consumers.”

The Health Promotion Agency, Ministry for Primary Industries, and Ministry of Health have worked together on the awareness campaign.

The campaign gets underway with online advertising from Monday. Advertising on bus shelters and in cereal aisles of Countdown supermarkets will start from 21 March 2015. The campaign runs until June 2018.