{
  "id": 19412678,
  "title": "UK regulatory systems for food and drink identify only around half of processed/ultraprocessed products as unhealthy",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/10/uk-regulatory-systems-for-food-and-drink-identify-only-around-half-of",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-11-10T23:30:13.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Medical Xpress",
    "slug": "medical-xpress",
    "url": "https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-11-uk-regulatory-food-processedultraprocessed-products.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Recent research published in BMJ Medicine reveals that the United Kingdom's current regulatory systems for identifying unhealthy processed and ultraprocessed food items are only able to classify around half of these products as unhealthy. This is based on comparisons drawn from a national survey of food and drink items consumed by the general public in 2019-20. The research highlights inconsistencies in the classification criteria of three regulatory systems: the Food Standards Agency (FSA) nutrient profiling model, the front-of-pack traffic lights labeling system, and official U.K. dietary guidance.\n\nAccording to the official dietary guidance, no more than 35% of total energy intake should come from total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and free sugars, and no more than 6 grams of salt per day. Using this guidance as a basis, three new nutrient profiling models were developed to assess excess saturated fat, free sugar, salt, total fat, and energy density in processed and ultraprocessed products. The compared results show that the FSA model identified nearly 58% of ultraprocessed products and 50% of processed products as unhealthy, while the traffic lights labeling system identified less than half (48%) of both types of products as unhealthy. In contrast, the new nutrient profiling models identified significantly higher proportions of unhealthy products, with NPM1 classifying 91.5% of ultraprocessed products as unhealthy, NPM2 identifying nearly 95%, and NPM3 classifying almost 98% of such items as unhealthy.",
  "summary": "Current U.K. regulatory systems for food and drink identify only around half of processed and ultraprocessed products as unhealthy—in other words, those that contain excess fat, salt, sugar and energy density—finds research published in BMJ Medicine. But new nutrient profiling, based on official U.K. dietary guidance, classifies more than 90% of these products as unhealthy. A single unified…",
  "key_points": [
    "UK regulatory systems classify only ~50% of processed/ultraprocessed foods as unhealthy",
    "New nutrient profiling models identify 91.5%-98% of unhealthy processed/ultraprocessed products"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}