You're standing in front of the yogurt shelf at the supermarket, where one product is high in protein, another has reduced sugar, and a third is made with natural ingredients. Each has something going for it, but which one should you actually choose? To work that out, you'd have to turn the packages over and start comparing numbers, which takes quite a while.

The idea behind Nutri-Score is to make this comparison easier. A colored letter on the front of the package gives a quick overview of the product's nutritional composition. In Estonia, however, this small label has sparked a big debate. Supporters see it as a practical tool, while critics argue that a single letter can give an oversimplified picture of a food.

Can a chocolate cake be made to score green under the calculation? Why might a traditional food get a lower rating? And what can that letter actually tell you when you're shopping?

What does Nutri-Score actually measure?

Nutri-Score is a label developed in France that rates a product’s nutritional composition on a scale from A to E. A dark green A indicates a more favourable rating, while a dark orange E indicates a less favourable one. B, C and D fall in between.

The rating is calculated per 100 grams or 100 millilitres. Higher levels of energy, sugars, salt and saturated fatty acids can worsen the score. Fibre, protein and the proportion of fruit, vegetables and legumes, for example, have a more favourable effect on the rating. Special rules apply to some product categories. The calculation takes total sugars into account, not just added sugar.

This information is used to produce a single overall rating. It does not tell you whether a food fits into your diet today or how large a portion you should eat. The label is most useful for comparing similar products: yoghurt with yoghurt, bread with bread or breakfast cereal with breakfast cereal. An A-rated cereal does not mean it should replace B-rated bread at your breakfast.

If the information is already on the packaging, why add another label?

This is one of the questions asked about Nutri-Score. After all, nutrition information is already on the back of the packaging.

It is. But having information available and being able to use it quickly are two different things. When comparing two products, one may have less sugar, another more fibre, and a third less saturated fat. Assessing all these factors at once requires more attention than looking at a single number.

Health experts who support Nutri-Score see its value primarily in making more complex information easier to use while shopping. In Estonia, supporters of its voluntary adoption include the National Institute for Health Development and several professional medical organisations, such as the Estonian Paediatric Association, the Estonian Association for the Treatment of Obesity and the Estonian Endocrine Society.

We already receive messages on the front of packaging that influence our purchasing decisions. “High in protein” highlights one characteristic, “reduced sugar” another. Both may be accurate, but neither describes the rest of the product's composition. The advantage of Nutri-Score is that several factors are considered together, and the calculation must follow specific rules.

A coloured letter arrives in Estonia: what happened on 15 October?

Nutri-Score can already be seen in Estonian shops, for example on imported products. It is currently used in seven European countries: Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Germany and Switzerland. The debate is about whether to allow Estonian producers to use the same label on products intended for the domestic market.

On 15 October 2026, Minister of Regional Affairs and Agriculture Hendrik Johannes Terras signed the corresponding draft regulation, which was sent for interministerial consultation. This is about allowing voluntary use, not requiring a coloured letter on every food product. The minister believes that Estonian producers are currently at a disadvantage in the domestic market compared with foreign competitors.

The Estonian Food Industry Association and other business organisations critical of the scheme fear that a simplified rating could overlook important characteristics, damage the image of traditional products and encourage producers to develop recipes primarily to obtain a better letter grade. 

Using the system also entails costs, such as updating packaging. They also argue that there is no consensus on Nutri-Score in the European Union and that Estonia should wait for a unified, science-based solution. These are reasons worth discussing, but they do not justify saying that all Estonian producers oppose the label.

The ministry has so far emphasised that the process is still at the analysis stage: studies assessing the label's alignment with Estonian dietary guidelines and the economic impact of voluntary adoption are still being completed. The draft is now undergoing interministerial consultation, and no final decision has yet been made.

Can chocolate cake get a green letter?

Cargill's chocolate cake example has attracted considerable attention in the debate. Cargill sells ingredients to the food industry and describes in its materials how prototypes were developed: versions rated C and A alongside a reference recipe rated E. This involved, among other changes, reducing sugar and salt content and adding fibre. The company itself describes these as brownies, and the material is aimed at manufacturers looking to improve their recipes.

In an opinion piece, Sirje Potisepp, head of the Estonian Food Industry Association, cited this as an example of the risk that manufacturers will focus primarily on improving their algorithm score. After all, cake is still cake, even if it has a green letter.

Here, however, two questions need to be distinguished. Does a better rating turn cake into a food that can be eaten without limit? No. Can lower sugar and salt content and higher fibre content represent meaningful changes? Yes. The mere fact that a manufacturer wanted a better letter grade does not mean that the improvement in composition is only superficial.

Nor can a longer ingredient list automatically be taken to mean that the new recipe is worse. To determine that, we would need to look at what was changed, what was replaced with what, and the overall result.

Above all, the cake example shows why consumers need to understand what the label means. A better nutritional rating is not a promise that every aspect of the food has been assessed. Cargill's description also does not reveal what rating the same prototypes would receive under the current, updated scoring model.

Do traditional foods, such as black bread and butter, get an unfair rating?

Traditional food has qualities that cannot be captured in a nutrition table. Taste, local ingredients and a familiar recipe can be perfectly good reasons to prefer a product. However, these qualities do not in themselves reduce its salt or saturated fat content.

Bread does not receive a single fixed Nutri-Score rating. In the Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture's calculation examples, rye breads received an A, B or C rating, and black breads a B or C, depending on their composition. The label can therefore help you choose between breads.

For butter, a short ingredient list does not make the saturated fat disappear. At the same time, a poorer letter grade does not mean that a slice of bread and butter should be excluded from your diet. A food's place in your diet also depends on portion size and how often you eat it.

Tradition and nutritional composition simply answer different questions. You do not have to disregard one to value the other.

What doesn't the green letter tell you?

Nutri-Score does not assess your portion size. The same letter stays on the packaging whether you eat one biscuit or the whole pack. Nor does it provide an overall assessment of the food's degree of processing, vitamin and mineral content, origin or environmental impact. This means that even a highly processed product can receive a favourable rating.

The same letter does not mean identical composition either. Two products rated D can differ considerably in their protein, salt or fat content. If protein content is what matters to you, you still need to check it on the packaging.

Another limitation is that the product is assessed as sold. The rating for frozen French fries therefore does not necessarily reflect the end result if you add a lot of oil and salt during preparation. The nutrition information on the back of the packaging has the same limitation: it cannot predict how you cook at home.

These limitations are real. Still, a single label on a package does not have to answer every nutrition-related question to be helpful in making some decisions.

Do studies show that the label works?

Studies need to distinguish between three things: whether people understand the label, whether their purchases change, and whether their long-term health also improves. A finding about one does not automatically prove the others.

A trial conducted in 60 supermarkets in France compared four front-of-pack labels, with Nutri-Score delivering the best results. In real stores, however, the effect was small: the nutritional quality of the basket of labelled products purchased improved by about 2,5% (assessed using the British FSA nutrient profiling scale), and the effects were, on average, approximately 17 times smaller than in comparable laboratory studies. This was a change in the composition of purchases, not measured weight loss or a reduction in disease risk.

In October, a summary of an analysis commissioned by LABRIS was published for Estonia, assessing 242 foods and products. For example, all the unprocessed and frozen vegetables and fruit, as well as unprocessed fish and poultry, examined received the highest rating, A. This supports the label’s general alignment with Estonian dietary recommendations, but does not yet show how purchasing behaviour among people in Estonia would change. 

Business associations, for their part, emphasise that the long-term impact on public health has not been proven.

Overall, there is evidence of potential benefits, but their magnitude depends on the circumstances.

Why might a familiar product’s letter grade change?

The Nutri-Score calculation model has been updated to better align with dietary recommendations. The changes help distinguish fibre-rich wholegrain products from refined grain products more clearly and refine the assessment of oily fish and certain vegetable oils.

The presence of sweeteners is now also taken into account in drinks: a drink containing sweeteners cannot receive a grade better than C, and the only drink that can receive an A is water. So replacing sugar with a sweetener does not automatically lead to a green letter grade. This special rule applies to drinks, not to all foods containing sweeteners.

The updated model came into effect in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland at the beginning of 2024; in France, it was approved by decree on 14 March 2025. Manufacturers have two years to update their packaging. Because of the transition periods, you may see packaging in shops displaying grades calculated using different models. A product’s letter grade may therefore change even if its recipe stays the same.

How can Nutri-Score help you at the supermarket?

Nutri-Score is worth checking as a quick first guide when choosing between two similar products. If needed, you can check the back of the packaging to see what accounts for the difference and what matters to you personally.

A green letter does not tell you how much to eat, and a D or E does not mean a food is off-limits. A product without the label should not be considered inferior either, as using the system is voluntary.

Nutri-Score does not have to plan your entire diet for you. Its practical value can be much more modest and everyday: making it a little easier to choose between two similar breads, yoghurts or ready meals. The label does not have to be perfect to do that. But it does have to be clear what you can expect from that letter.

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