UK regulatory systems for food + drink identify only around half of processed/ultraprocessed products as unhealthy

But new nutrient profiling, based on official UK dietary guidance, classifies 90%+ of these products as unhealthy

Unified system, aligned with this guidance, may offer best way forward, say researchers

Current UK 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 the open access journal BMJ Medicine.

But new nutrient profiling, based on official UK dietary guidance, classifies more than 90% of these products as unhealthy. A single unified regulatory system, using agreed definitions, that is aligned with this guidance, may offer the best way forward, say the researchers.

The three systems used to identify unhealthy food and drink products in the UK and inform regulation and policy are The Eatwell Guide (official dietary guidance), the Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling model (FSA NPM) (regulation), and front-of-pack traffic lights labelling (regulation), explain the researchers.

But there are gaps and misalignments in the classification criteria of these systems, so that products rated as unhealthy by one aren’t rated as unhealthy by another. But to date no study has directly tested these inconsistencies, the researchers point out.

They therefore compared the nutrient content classifications of 262 processed items and 1636 ultraprocessed items consumed by the general public from the nationally representative National Diet and Nutrition Survey database for Year 12 (2019-20).

Based on the official dietary Eatwell guidance they constructed three new nutrient profiles to identify excess saturated fat, free sugar, salt (sodium), total fat, and energy density in these processed and ultraprocessed products.

NPM1 identified excess saturated fat, free sugar, and sodium; NPM2 identified excess saturated fat, free sugar, sodium, and total fat; and NPM3 included all the components.

These were compared with each other and with the FSA and traffic light labelling systems.

UK dietary guidance includes recommendations for no more than 35%, 10%, 2%, and 5% of total energy intake from total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and free sugars, respectively, and no more than 6 g/day of salt.

Analysis of the results revealed that the proportion of ultraprocessed and processed products identified as unhealthy differed significantly between the various nutrient profile systems.

The FSA model identified nearly 58% of ultraprocessed products and 50% of processed products as unhealthy, whereas the traffic lights labelling system identified less than half (just over 48%) of ultraprocessed products and processed products (46%) as unhealthy.

The new NPMs identified nearly twice as many ultraprocessed products as unhealthy: for NPM1 this figure was 91.5%; for NPM2 it was almost 95%; and for NPM3 it was almost 98%.

The researchers acknowledge that they didn’t include minimally processed products in their analysis, and did capture foods in the traffic light labelling system that aren’t labelled in the real world, because this system is voluntary.

Nevertheless, they conclude: “Food and drink products with excess content of harmful nutrients, according to UK government dietary guidance, were not identified by current systems for regulating UK food and drink products.

“Our new NPMs, based on current UK government dietary guidance, identified as unhealthy significantly greater proportions of processed and ultraprocessed products than the FSA NPM and the front-of-pack traffic lights labelling system.”

In a linked editorial, Professor Franco Sassi and Dr Shashika Rathnayaka of Imperial College, London, point out that product classification is only part of the policy problem.

“Policies mostly target products, but their goal is to improve diets overall. A greater dietary share of ultraprocessed foods is associated not only with poorer nutrient profiles but also with lower consumption of fruits, vegetables, and legumes,” they write.

“Policies may trigger substitution between foods, so their effects cannot be inferred from the number of products crossing a classification threshold. Evaluation should therefore consider purchasing and consumption, reformulation and substitution, and ultimately overall dietary patterns.”

They continue: “The key question that governments must answer is whether nutrient based, processing based, or combined approaches should be used to target food policies because each may result in different policy effects.

“Determining when nutrient quality or processing, or both, should guide policy must rely on evidence of the relevance, feasibility, and reproducibility of different policy approaches, and on their effects on reformulation, food choices, substitution, and dietary patterns.”

10/11/2026

Notes for editors
Research: Evaluation of energy density and levels of fat, sugar, and salt in processed and ultra-processed food with existing and novel nutrient profiling models to identify unhealthy food and drink: cross sectional analysis of a nationally representative database of food and drink items Doi:10.1136/bmjmed-2025-001750
Editorial: Defining unhealthy food in the era of ultraprocessing Doi: 10.1136/bmjmed-2026-003318

Journal: BMJ Medicine

About the journal
BMJ Medicine is one of more than 80 journals published by BMJ Group. https://bmjmedicine.bmj.com

Link to Academy of Medical Sciences press release labelling system:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/AMSlabels.pdf

Externally peer reviewed? Yes (research); No (editorial)
Evidence type: Data analysis
Subjects: Dietary products