Coming clean: what does ‘clean label’ actually mean?
Ironically, for a trend based on clarity, it is surprisingly hard to pin down a universal definition of what clean label actually means.
“It’s a marketing term, not a legal term, and there are lots of shades of grey around this,” admits Melanie Loades, founder at product developer Froghop. “It’s a bit like ‘superfoods’, which isn’t a legal term either but people assume they know what it means.”
When Michael Pollan, in his book In Defence of Food, advocated the approach, his instructions were “avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar B) unpronounceable C) more than five in number or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup”.
“Broadly the definition around clean label is the idea of naturalness, taking away anything artificial, but oftentimes that means anything the consumer would identify as appearing artificial,” adds Kiti Soininen, category director for UK food & drink at Mintel. “For example, many kitchen cupboard ingredients would have a familiar name but also have a chemical name and an E number. The fact that something has an E number assigned to it does not make it an artificial thing. So part of clean label is reformulating, but the other part is terminology.
Source: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/health/coming-clean-what-does-clean-label-actually-mean/574321.article


