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Food Compass nutrient profiling system is updated to fit latest nutrition research

A nutrient profiling system widely used in the food and beverage industry has been redesigned to reflect new data on specific ingredients and the latest diet-health evidence.

Food Compass 2.0 has been validated against health outcomes in populations across the United States, which, according to the development team, has demonstrated an enhanced ability to characterise food and beverages based on their nutritional and health profiles.

We spoke to Eden Barrett, research fellow in food policy at the George Institute for Global Health, who led the project, to find out what it entails and the impact it is expected to have on the industry.

The main improvements to Food Compass

“Food Compass 2.0 was developed to provide improved assessment of the healthfulness of foods and beverages considering the latest evidence,” said Barrett.

He went on to explain that those improvement encompass seven main areas: broader scoring for processed foods; the inclusion of added sugar in the food ingredients domain; higher scoring for dietary fibre; dairy fat calculated as a more positive attribute; new data on artificial additives, flavours, colours and sweeteners skewing negative; more positive scoring for seafood omega-3’s; and a neutral rather than positive scoring for 100% juices as an ingredient.

“Our analysis shows that people eating foods with higher Food Compass 2.0 scores have lower body weight, blood glucose, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol levels; lower risk of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, or cancer; and a much lower risk of dying from any cause,” said Barrett.

“Manufacturers can use Food Compass 2.0 to enhance the healthfulness of the foods they provide by aiming to increase the average score of their offerings and overall portfolios. It might also be helpful to use Food Compass as part of guidance to consumers on front-of-pack labels or shopping and meal planning software, to track and improve average scores of products sold in each product category.”

What the system updates will mean for consumers

One of the primary aims of the upgraded tool is to make it easier for consumers to buy healthier packaged foods in a simple and more straightforward way. Given that diet advice is often confusing and even conflicting, the aim was to provide individuals with solid advice, based on science.

“The scores refer to foods as consumed, so consumers can look for higher-scoring ways of preparing their favorite ingredients such as eggs or pasta. Food Compass also includes many packaged and branded foods, so consumers can use scores to shop for healthier items within each category, like breakfast cereals. It works best when used alongside other dietary guidelines and personalised advice to compare similar foods based on their overall health impact,” Barrett said.

The new database has some interesting findings

Using the new scoring system has underscored how different categories compare to one another. The tool contains a database of 9,273 food and beverage products, scoring them on a relative scale of 1 to 100, 1 being the lowest score.

According to Barrett, some general trends were identified, with beverages and animal fats showing the lowest score, ≤30. In the middle of the scoring scale, meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy scored between 31-69, while at the upper end, most products within the seafood, legumes, nuts, vegetables, and fruits categories scored ≥70.

“Comparing Food Compass 2.0 to the original Food Compass, only about 10% of products saw a score change of more than 10 points, demonstrating the stability of Food Compass’s core principles. Categories with relatively larger drops in scores included breakfast cereals, plant-based dairy, cereal bars, and juice; and categories with relatively larger increases in scores included lean red meat, seafood, eggs, and plain rice and pasta,” said Barrett.

Guiding future food policy on healthy eating

With global obesity on the rise and health services under increasing pressure to cope, governments worldwide are looking for nutrient profiling systems to help provide constructive solutions to make food nutrient assessment easier and more amenable.

“The ultimate aim of the Food Compass is to provide consumers, policy makers, retailers, food manufacturers, and healthcare professionals with a tool to help determine the healthfulness of different foods, beverages, mixed meals, and restaurant meals. We hope it can help people make decisions about otherwise similar appearing foods and assist the FDA and other decision-makers toward front-of-pack and other policy solutions,” said Barrett.

All of the Food Compass 2.0 methods and results, including the algorithm for calculating Food Compass, are freely and publicly available.