A study on the nutrition and health claims used on foods and beverages in New Zealand has revealed that claims about vitamin and mineral content and gluten were the most common. Researchers examined 700 products across 16 product categories and compared this with previous data collected using similar surveys in 2014/15 and 2016/17.

Forty-four per cent of products carried at least one nutrition content claim (NCC) or general-level health claim (GLHC). The top three most common claims were vitamins (mostly C and B-group), gluten-free, and minerals (mostly iron and calcium). Special-purpose foods had the highest prevalence of claims. Compared to the 2016/17 survey, there were more claims about vitamins, minerals, sugar and protein and fewer claims about fibre, sodium, fat or cholesterol. Categories with an increase in the use of claims were ‘meat and meat products’, ‘dairy and dairy products’ and ‘eggs’. Gluten-free claims have remained consistent. 

Read the research paper (free to view) here.