What's in a Label? Rip Off Food

Food - it's big business.

Now, each year, we spend something like £5,000 per household on food and drink.

So the competition for your pound is tough.

We'll leave no shelf untouched in our quest to champion you, the weekly shopper.

This is a series in which we'll be exposing the hidden rip offs

and letting you in on the tricks of the food trade.

And, most importantly, we'll show you how to be a smart shopper.

Welcome to Rip Off Food!

'Today, we're cracking the labelling code.'

That is really... How can they do that?

'We'll show you the tricks that supermarkets use

'to get their products into your basket.

'We'll make you think twice before you buy that summer treat.'

You tend to think of ice cream as being a really luxury product,

whereas this looks singularly unappetising.

'And find out why a prize-winning pasty-maker is unhappy

'with a new logo that claims to protect heritage foods.'

You know, these days, clued-up shoppers have to be label literate.

Because it's an elementary fact that manufacturers use

very clever packaging to pull us in to start spending money.

And I hope to show you today

how that plays around with your senses and confuses the mind.

You never know, after this, you might never look

at a supermarket shelf in the same way ever again.

From time to time, the Government comes up with an initiative

to make it easier to avoid the things that are bad for us.

For example, the smoking ban.

But in the case of food labelling, the follow-through isn't quite

so prescriptive and the results aren't as effective.

The five-a-day campaign has been around for almost a decade.

It's a phrase that's been drilled into the nation's psyche.

You know, there are so many ways we can be manipulated by marketing.

And in these health-conscious times, a food that claims to be

one of our five a day is obviously very attractive.

But are we kidding ourselves

when we pick up a tasty looking meal, believing that

the five-a-day label allows us to stay healthy while we eat it?

There's an official five-a-day logo

that can only be awarded by the Department of Health.

To qualify, a food product should contain at least one portion

of fruit or veg and no added salt, sugar or fat.

Although 300 companies have signed up,

it's so rarely seen that you may not even recognise it.

-Five a day, did you say?

-Yeah.

I don't recognise the logo but I recognise, of course,

the phrase "five a day".

It looks like, perhaps, a new logo.

I think I've seen the expression rather than the logo, actually.

If it was without the writing, the words,

-I wouldn't know it was five a day.

-Yeah.

The five-a-day campaign is based on the idea

that 400g of fruit and veg a day can protect against diseases

like cancers, heart diseases, type-two diabetes and others.

So the maths is, five portions of 80g each a day - minimum.

Dietician Emer Delany thinks the message is simple.

The majority of the fruit and veg qualify as one of your five a day,

as long as it's an 80g portion,

which equates to an apple, an orange, some small fruits

or any berries that'll fit into the palm of your hand.

The exception to this would be potatoes,

which are considered a starchy carbohydrate.

So if you eat 80g of fresh fruit or veg, you know that you're getting

one of your five a day.

But more recently, the slogan has been hijacked by food manufacturers

making processed foods.

Some are using the phrase to highlight the best parts

of their products, to distract us from ingredients

that might be less good for us - like sugar, salt or fat.

There are a huge amount of products that use the five-a-day messaging.

For example, the ready meals, microwave meals

and some snacks here at the front.

A lot of the products in front of us here

have got high levels of fat, sugar and salt.

So it's quite confusing for consumers

because they also see the five-a-day messaging on them.

So let's start with a tasty looking ready meal.

It's labelled as one of your five a day.

So in this product here, you are getting some fruit and veg -

so a pepper, some onion and some peas, which make up 80g.

This product also provides you with almost 3g of salt,

which is half the amount of salt you're meant to have in one day.

When you sprinkle that amount of salt on the veg,

it's not so appetising.

This is a lot of salt to have in one meal

and, again, if you were to serve these vegetables to someone covered in salt, they wouldn't eat it.

Now we know potatoes don't count,

so how do fish and chips get a five-a-day slogan?

So, with this dish we're clearly not getting the five a day

from the fish or the chips. So it's obviously coming from the peas.

Here's one of your five a day, which comes with 22g of fat.

So this is almost a third of the recommended amount of fat

to have in a day.

And this is bad because some fats are bad for your heart,

such as saturated fat, and they're not very good if you're trying to lose weight.

So we decided to make our own "one of your five a day" puddings

that's got the necessary 80g of strawberries per portion.

But it's got a whole load of custard and cream, as well. Yum!

But if manufacturers can legally label this

with the five-a-day slogan promoted by the Government,

doesn't it undermine the whole idea?

Now, when you've got a question, I believe it's always best to go right to the top.

So I'm taking our five-a-day pudding to Westminster

for a meeting with Anne Milton, who's the Junior Minister for Health.

I think she needs face up to the five-a-day farce.

-Oh, my goodness!

-A rather delicious looking trifle.

OK.

Imagine if you look at this in terms of health and strength.

That, in particular - I dare say you wouldn't have brought it along

unless it was loaded with fat.

-It's a good home-made trifle, which a lot of people indulge in.

-Is it?

OK, so it's got 80g of strawberries per person,

so that would be my one a day.

But it also has, per person, 59g of sugar per helping.

And - this is horrific I think - it's got 79.4g of fat.

That's phenomenal, actually, and so, of course, we wouldn't give it

our logo because it's got added sugar and fat, to start off with.

And you're right. You say of course, you, the Government,

you wouldn't give that your logo.

But the problem is, it's been hijacked under the five-a-day tag.

Because so many people are using it now.

How much does it bother you the fact that it has been hijacked?

It does bother me but people play with words

and you see it all the time.

I think there is evidence that the tide has turned a little bit.

Manufacturers do want to behave more responsibly.

I think there's nobody who's not aware of the fact that,

you know, 60% of the adult population is now overweight or obese.

We have a problem.

What we need to do is make sure that consumers have the information

they need in which to demand from the manufacturers of food

what they want in order to lead a healthier lifestyle.

-But it's a confusing market out there at the moment.

-It is.

The consumers go along to the shop and they look for their logo.

I just happen to have my pot of raisins with me.

So here is the logo - er, the Government logo.

I'm going to be absolutely honest -

until today, honestly, I'm not aware of this logo at all.

I don't mean to offend but I think it's rather insignificant looking.

No, you're... It doesn't offend me at all.

The logo's been in place since 2003.

It's had a desired effect in as much as it raised awareness that people

should eat their five a day.

I think you're right that recognition of the logo isn't very high,

and that leaves us in danger of the logo being hijacked.

What do you think needs to be done about making the logo more recognisable to the public

and maybe get more companies to sign up to it?

Well, there's a consultation going on separate to this logo

about information on the front of packets of food.

That's open - anybody can contribute and it would be, you know,

an important opportunity to say that if any of your watchers today

are interested, then we'd love to have their views

about what would make a difference to them,

to help them to make more informed choices about what they buy.

Go to the Department of Health website to do that.

I would suggest maybe a more prominent logo.

Well, a more prominent logo

and what you put on the front of a packet is going to be important.

It can be quite a crowded space these days.

We would like much more upfront information to make sure that

consumers have the information they need, on which to base their choices.

We asked the Food And Drink Federation if they agreed

that food manufacturers are misusing the phrase.

They said that, "Currently, there is no Government advice

"on how to use a five-a-day label on composite products

"and the Institute of Grocery Distribution has developed

"best practice guidance, which includes nutritional standards,

"to guide retailers and manufacturers

"who want to label their products responsibly."

In a multi-million-pound market,

food manufacturers and retailers are after your hard-earned cash.

And they'll use all their marketing know-how to entice you

into buying their goods, even going as far as

inventing some of the places where their products come from.

So what's happening these days is that supermarkets,

in order to stay ahead of the competition,

are personalising products to give them idyllic names -

you know, conjuring up all those pictures of rural countryside and unique locations.

It creates a sense of small-scale farming when, in actual fact,

these products are mass-produced in many different locations.

They come up with evocative titles for product ranges

such as Ashfield Farm, used by Aldi, Elmwood, the Co-op,

Willow Farm, a Tesco range of chickens,

and Lochmuir salmon and Oakham chicken by M&S.

Ashfield, Elmwood and Willow ARE named after a farm

but not all the products in the range come from there.

Lochmuir? We'll come to that in a second.

And Oakham is a town but not a chicken farm.

It's only when you look closer that you find out the truth,

and there's nothing illegal about it.

So the M&S range of Lochmuir salmon may be from Scotland

but, on face value, it sounds like it comes from

a specific and idyllic-sounding location.

Let's see if the good people of Edinburgh are taken in

by this mythical place.

The name makes you assume that it's probably the Highlands,

somewhere like that, somewhere near Inverness.

West coast.

The great glen on the west coast but I've not heard of that loch.

You'd expect it's a loch somewhere. You know, the name of the loch,

but I haven't heard of that.

Lochmuir - never heard of it.

Uh-oh, smells a bit fishy to me,

and there's a reason why no-one has ever heard of it.

Lochmuir is a trademark for Marks & Spencer.

It is a brand that exists for them to promote their farmed salmon.

There's no such place as Lochmuir - that means "lake of the sea" -

which is where... It's water near the sea. It's only as it's arbitrary as that.

It doesn't actually exist as a place.

And the problem for me is that a shopper could go into that store

and pick that up and think it's from a place that exists, and it doesn't.

To sell products, they'll do anything.

I wouldn't expect them to mislead, no.

If you saw something with "loch" in Scotland, you'd think it was a place.

I thought Marks & Spencer were better.

So Lochmuir doesn't exist -

it's just a place dreamt up by the M&S marketing team.

But it's not only M&S.

To add an air of quality to one of their range of chicken products,

Tesco have called it Willow Farm chicken.

That is really... How can they do that?

They shouldn't be allowed to state that it's a Willow Farm product,

if it doesn't come from a farm called Willow Farm.

-I would buy that over the cheap one cos it says Willow Farm.

-I would, too.

It doesn't say "free range" or "roaming free", but it does say,

"Willow Farm chickens live in a spacious windowed..." Ooh, barns.

Ooh.

Marketing is all about finding an identity to buy

and belong to something.

Most of us go only to a few places to buy our food,

and they have to find ways to look different.

And one of the ways to look different is to look small

and pretend our food is from a specific place.

There's nothing illegal about describing your product

with a particular marketing term,

but I believe it's misleading if it doesn't exist as a place.

So how carefully, then, do you have to study a label to make sure

that what you buy is what it actually says on the label?

Well, one thing you can do is to look for a trademark sign.

And if you see this, it's a good indication

that the name could be made up.

Of course, many supermarkets are employing these tricks of the trade.

When we asked M&S, Tesco, Aldi and the Co-op

why they were making up names for their products,

this is what they told us.

M&S responded,

"Lochmuir is a collective way of representing a number of farms

"and was chosen to recognise the Scottish provenance of the fish.

"Oakham chicken was created for a high-welfare-standard range

"of chickens from specially selected farms around the UK."

Tesco said, "All the chickens are British

"and come from a number of farms, one of which is called Willow Farm."

Aldi said, "Ashfield Farm is a brand name

"and does not mean that they source the meat from one farm."

They added that the meat in the range is 100% British.

The Co-op said, "Elmwood chickens are reared in 200 farms in the UK.

"Elmwood was the name of a farm, back in 2007."

So who, then, are these masters of illusion

who create the packing that lures us all in?

There aren't many brand designers who will stand up and be counted

when it comes to revealing the tricks of the trade, but I've managed to find one.

Gary, good morning. How are you?

Good morning.

'Gary Marshall is a leading brand designer

'with over a decade of experience under his belt.'

We've been actually, on the programme, doing some research

and looking at labels and things, and, for example, we have here

Lochmuir Salmon. Now, as I understand it, Lochmuir doesn't even exist.

That's correct, yes.

Really, what these companies are trying to do is to create a story.

So therefore, you know, if you've got places that sound real,

-you can imagine what this fish is going to be like.

-So, in this case, what?

You're trying to do imply this lovely Scottish, outdoor, healthy kind of...

Correct, yes, it's a good, healthy food,

you know, that's had a good life, because people are emotional

so therefore when they see this, the image they've got in their mind can be a bit more detailed,

and a bit more detail makes it a bit more real.

If you just say it's generic, it could be anything.

Sometimes facts tell, emotions sell.

So on a general level,

how do you go about making up names or deciding on names?

Well, for us, if we're working with a new company, we would sit down with them and discuss ideas,

understand what their values are, what they are trying to achieve.

Just bounce names around, make some names up and you just...

A word just comes to mind and you start to play with that.

Sometimes you know you've only got five seconds

when you're on that shelf, standing there comparing two products,

it will go down to, "Quickly in my mind, that one sounds nicer."

OK, so this one is Willow Farm chicken breast fillets.

If you have an idea of what that place is,

then you've made that image yourself.

It's a nice countryside, open fields,

so you're going to imagine your chickens

running around in nice sunny country fields, being corn fed.

-You've just planted in my mind.

-I'm just planting it.

I've brought a little present along for Gary.

I want him to show me how

this seemingly mundane string of sausages could be transformed

into something that would stand out on a supermarket shelf.

He's created a selection of labels just for my sausages,

but be warned - you won't find any of these in the shops.

As the designer, what do you feel is drawing me

to this design for example?

This one is very much using the dark colours of black -

black is a bit more premium elegance

so you would expect a nice rich-flavour sausage on this one.

And you used the word "premium", of course.

Yes, I mean, again, you know, as we all know in marketing,

we can all use these words - "premium", "prime cuts" -

to bring out that sort of more... Probably a better range of sausage.

And, of course, you've out the various stamps of approval.

Yeah, if you notice here,

we've sort of got the pig looking down towards this

to emphasise the UK quality pork, which is important to consumers.

Now, the logos here for Red Tractor Pork, Freedom Foods

and the Soil Association are all genuine accredited schemes.

they can only be used if the product is certified by those organisations.

But what about the pretty pictures?

Again, this one was using imagery.

The pigs here have clearly got a lot of space.

Very nice light, earthy colours.

Now, I noticed that you called them Lincolnshire sausages,

even though they may not necessarily be made in Lincolnshire.

If I fancy the name, I can still use it?

Only if it's made in the recipe way of Lincolnshire.

If you're not doing the flavouring as a Lincolnshire sausage

and it's not coming from Lincolnshire, then you wouldn't be able to do it.

Hence the reason why you would probably make up a place name,

as some people have, and put it on there.

If you look at an illustration,

there's nothing there saying how the pigs have been brought up.

-You've used "home-made" very strongly there haven't you?

-Yeah, again, it's more personal.

Food Standards Agency guidance says that the term "home-made" should be used

when preparation reflects a typical domestic situation.

Looking at things like the fonts, that can add emotion, through the different style of font you're using.

Things like sizes - you've only got a second when the consumer first sees it,

so again, make it very clear what it is.

The secondary text, as we would call it, is more a description.

I mean, for this one, we've just put, "Traditionally made sausages using only the finest prime cuts,

"mixed with our unique blend of seasoning in natural casings."

-You'd get away with that, no matter what the quality of the sausage?

-Yes, probably.

You know, some people would tell you there's an artistic licence in some things.

I think there's a lot of artistic licence, to be honest.

It's fascinating, though.

So my advice is, finally, don't be lured or led astray

by the rustic and rural-sounding names on the packages.

Always read the small print,

find out exactly where the product comes from

and if there's no information, then the best advice is to ask the retailer.

So beware of packages bearing idyllic scenes -

they might not be quite what you imagined.

However, other foods, like Cornish pasties, appear to be stamped

with a badge of honour to prove that they ARE the real deal.

Now, the question is, just how genuine are some Cornish pasties?

Just when you're feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information

on a food label, a couple of new ones come along to bamboozle you.

Take the latest addition - these PDOs and PGIs.

Now, does anyone understand what they mean?

I have no idea on that one.

Never, ever seen the yellow symbol before.

-I don't know what that means.

-I'm not familiar with that myself. Are you?

I guess it means where it's produced is maybe environmentally friendly...

Now, I'll let you into a trade secret -

a PGI is a protected geographical indication

and a PDO is protected designation of origin.

Are you any the wiser? Well, 48 British foods can wear the logos with pride.

Now, these PGIs and PDOs are the labels that put

the Cornish in the pasty and the Jersey in Jersey Royals.

They were dreamt up by the bureaucrats in Brussels

with the idea of protecting heritage food right across Europe.

They're to stop champagne growers in France, for example,

being undercut by cheap fizz imports, and now the scheme has been extended -

everything from bangers and beer to those Cornish pasties.

To be a PDO, the food has to be produced

and processed in a particular area.

But to get a PGI, the food simply has to be assembled there.

And that's the rub. Because while it should be a badge of authenticity and quality,

some feel it favours big business over the skill of the artisan food maker.

Simon Bryon-Edmond makes traditional Cornish pasties -

but since the introduction of the PGI, he can't market them as such because he's based in Devon.

In 2009, we won best pasty in the country,

and we were then banned in 2010 because we weren't from Cornwall,

and they felt you could only find the best pasty in the country if it came from Cornwall.

Somebody rang me up and said, "What part of Devon is Cornwall?" from the awards.

Today, Simon is simply out to prove a point.

He's going to show us why a PGI might not be all that it's cracked up to be.

The border of Devon and Cornwall runs through

the centre of this bridge over the River Tamar.

To the left lies Cornwall, and to the right is Devon,

and stuck in the middle of the two counties is Simon.

He'll be making two pasties - one on either side of the border.

But only one of them has the right

to be called a Cornish pasty under PGI guidelines.

So let's see what's going into the pasty on the Cornish side.

Well, we've got some nice Israeli potatoes here.

We've got a little swede here that's come from

somewhere in the Eastern Bloc,

a little Chilean onion and we've got a bit of British beef,

but this could have come from anywhere - Argentina or Brazil.

And in the other one, on the Devon side...

So we've got a lovely bit of beef skirt all the way from Cornwall,

some Cornish onion, a bit of lovely Cornish swede,

and some potatoes that we got from Cornwall.

Simon is preparing both pasties using a traditional recipe.

The only difference is where the ingredients have come from.

This is the designated way of making a pasty.

You want to get the meat and the veg balance right.

We don't want too much meat in there,

we don't want too much veg. That looks about right.

It's a bit of an eye job.

Over it goes, make sure everything's tucked in.

You can put all sorts of crimps on pasties.

It could stay like that, but we're going to put on a little rope crimp. This will hold it together.

It might contain foreign ingredients, but the fact

that it's been assembled in Cornwall gives this pasty protected Cornish status.

Because I'm six inches over the Cornish border, that is a Cornish pasty.

But what about the pasty that Simon has been assembling

on the Devon side of the bridge, using 100% Cornish ingredients?

So here we have a classic, iconic side-crimped pasty,

made in the classic Cornish style.

But because I'm six inches into Devon,

this cannot be called a Cornish pasty. This, in fact, is a pasty.

OK, Simon, I agree - point made. And it does seem harsh.

This borderline dictates what we can call a product,

despite the quality and where the ingredients come from.

-Good day, sir. All right?

-Simon is off to the pub for a taste test.

First, he gives an official Cornish pasty to one of the locals.

-A good bite.

-Here we go.

Then he gets them to try one of his Devon pasties.

-That's very good.

-OK.

He prefers the Devon one.

-I would say that's the best pasty.

-Why would that be?

I don't know. It just tastes like a pasty.

So, his Devon pasties, made with Cornish ingredients,

seem to have won the day.

I prefer the taste of that one.

Simon can pat himself on the back for his great baking,

but he'll never make a PGI grade whilst his business is in Devon.

The actual designated product has a slightly lower specification

than I believe an iconic pasty should have.

A pasty should have high meat content,

it should be made with good provenance local ingredients.

That's what a good pasty should be about.

Unfortunately, the bar has been set a little bit low for the PGI,

whereby you don't have to buy within a region. You don't HAVE to buy within a region.

I'm not suggesting some companies don't, but you don't have to.

We asked DEFRA to comment. They say that it's the applicant who chooses

whether to apply for a PDO or a PDI.

They asked us to contact the Cornish Pasty Association

for clarification and they said,

"PGI and PDO classifications are related specifically

"to authenticity and origin of the product.

"As those features can themselves be an indication of quality,

"it's not the case that the classifications are not a guarantee of quality.

"The purpose of the law is to protect the reputation of regional foods,

"promote rural and agricultural activity,

"help producers obtain a premium price for their authentic products,

"and eliminate unfair competition or misleading consumers by non-genuine products."

So a PDO logo should be a dead give-away for what you're getting,

like on this Cornish cream. It does show that it comes from Cornwall.

But how about another Great British staple, chicken soup?

You'd expect it to have chicken meat in it, otherwise they couldn't call it chicken soup, could they?

But some soups have more chicken in them than others,

so what are the regulations on how much - or, indeed, how little - they can contain?

Now, we're not talking clear chicken broth.

We looked at a sample of 20 soups to see which one came top of the pecking order

when it came to actual chicken content.

We were shocked to find out how much - or, indeed, how little - meat they actually contained.

Even the top ones in our sample only contained 8%.

But at the other end of the scale,

the worst offender had a chicken content of just 0.5%.

Now, I don't know about you, but to me, shopping should be simple

and when you pick up a product, it should be absolutely clear

what you're buying simply by looking at the label.

We found many examples where there's a scant amount

of the ingredients you might expect to eat when you glance at the name of the product.

For example, this is supposed to be a wild mushroom soup,

but when you analyse the label, it's only 1% of wild mushrooms in that one.

Let's have look at this one. This is guacamole-style topping.

When you check the label on this one, it only has 3% avocado in it,

so it surely is a "style".

And this, probably, is the worst example I have in my current basket,

because it's chicken and mushroom, a pasta sauce with chicken and mushroom, but when you check it,

there's only 1% mushroom and no chicken whatsoever -

it's just chicken flavour.

That word "flavour" is a classic on packets. Under the regulations,

a chicken FLAVOUR soup does not have to contain any trace of real chicken in it whatsoever.

But if you stick an E and D on the end of "flavour",

to make it "flavoured", then that changes the meaning completely.

If something's referred to as "flavoured" then it's derived from the real thing.

Still not terribly reassuring, is it?

The use of the word "flavour" is really used by manufacturers

to indicate that there isn't, generally speaking,

the product in there. So for instance,

beef flavour crisps don't necessarily have beef in them.

Now, we want to find out if people generally are aware

of how little chicken meat manufacturers get away with putting in your soup.

So we're off to an East End market in London to carry out a little experiment.

Our researchers set up a stall

and laid out these three plates of chicken.

Which would people expect to find

in an average-sized can of chicken soup? Would it be 100g,

50g or just 10g?

I think about that much.

That would be too much. That's not enough.

I'd say the one in the middle.

I'd like that amount in it.

For a soup, I would point to this.

Well, they're way off the mark, I'm afraid.

Even the smallest of our portions is 15 times bigger than the worst offender in our survey.

It's a big con, really, isn't it? It's just a total big con.

-That's terrible.

-That's shocking.

-I'm never going to eat chicken soup again.

They cut it down into so small parts that it's more like a paste now.

There never seems to be any chicken in a chicken noodle soup.

-Yeah, it's just made up of more...

-Water.

-Yeah.

-Make your own. That's the answer.

-"Make your own!"

So just how little meat could a manufacturer add and still call it chicken soup?

We got in touch with DEFRA, which is the government department

responsible for food policy and regulation,

to find out the definitive answer, and they told us that there is...

Wait for this - there's no minimum amount of the key ingredient.

No amount whatsoever is specified in the regulations.

So therefore, a chicken soup with just 0.00001% of chicken

would actually still qualify as a chicken soup.

I think you'll agree, absolutely unbelievable.

And there's one important regulation everybody should know about.

The ingredients listed on the back of a package are always

in quantity order, starting with the most plentiful at the top,

except for flavourings that don't add up to any more than 2%.

So for instance, if you want plenty of cheese in your sauce or apple in your crumble,

make sure that it's high up on the list. That way, you know exactly what you're buying.

If the measly amounts of chicken in your soup has ruffled your feathers, then hold on to your hats.

There are foods that don't contain ANY of the main ingredients

they're commonly known for. Take ice cream, for instance.

Some don't have so much as a dollop of cream in them.

Now, when the sun comes out and the clothes come off, we all scream for ice cream.

But if you go for the budget end, like a soft-scoop ice cream,

you may not get quite what you expected.

To demonstrate what I mean, I'm meeting our resident boffin,

Peter Maynard, for a chemistry lesson.

All right, you've caught me at it.

This is one of my guilty pleasures, soft-scoop ice-cream.

But actually, what a lot of us don't realise

is that in this type of ice cream, there is no cream.

So the question is, what is it that I'm about to put into my mouth? Fortunately, Peter's here with me.

Actually, it's a bit of a disappointment to find out

-that there's no cream in it at all. So, what is in it?

-It's all on the label.

In this case, the list is "partially reconstituted whey protein".

-Well, there's your whey protein.

-Yeah.

-With sugar, of course. Glucose syrup, that's the same as sugar.

-Yeah.

Coconut oil, that's your vegetable oil, and then various emulsifiers.

Flavouring. Usually in this case it would be vanilla flavouring,

which might be natural, but might be artificial vanilla flavouring.

So, from a commercial point of view, why is it all this stuff, then,

and not more good stuff, if I can put it like that?

It's the usual reason - it's money.

All of these things put together are cheaper

than a genuine ice cream made from both cream and from water than flavouring.

Show me the procedure, then.

Well, here we've got some ordinary water.

If I add some vegetable oil to it, you'll see it's two layers to begin with.

Give it a shake.

And although it becomes an emulsion,

it very soon breaks into a layer of oil on the top

and a layer of water underneath.

It is that old phrase, isn't it, that oil and water won't mix?

Oil and water will not mix.

However, if I add some whey protein, this will help them to mix.

Really, all we're doing with this

is just, like, making solids, isn't it.

-Yep.

-Eventually.

And shake it up. This is quite different.

Obviously, the oil is not separating nearly as much as it was before.

And if I then add some of the thickeners and emulsifiers

and stabilisers so that it becomes much more like ice cream.

You know you tend to think of ice cream as being a really luxury product.

-Of course.

-Whereas this all looks singularly unappetising.

There you've got a very stable emulsion.

If I added a bit more of the thickeners,

then it would become as thick as ice cream,

especially once you've cooled it down in the freezer.

So you would just add a bit of vanilla or other flavouring

-to that and put it into the freezer?

-Sure, yep.

-And that's it, done?

-Yep, afraid so.

-Oh!

-That's all you've got in your ice cream.

-It is SO disappointing, I have to say!

So all of this is within the law, it's all statutory?

-Definitely is, yes.

-Nothing against the law?

-No, no.

Well, I was so looking forward to this dish of ice cream,

but do you know what? I'm going to feed it to you, Peter!

THEY LAUGH

I'm going to let you eat the product.

-Does it taste OK?

-No!

-SHE GIGGLES

-Thank you very much indeed!

I certainly will never, ever eat ice cream in the same fashion again.

By all means, eat the top-end brands,

but the cheaper end of the market is all going to be artificial.

And here's a final fact about soft-scoop ice cream.

It's not sold by weight, it's sold by volume.

And we can thank a certain Margaret Thatcher for that.

Before she got into politics,

she used her chemistry degree to develop a type of soft scoop,

by whipping air into ice cream to make it go further.

I love to see people enjoying themselves and I think these guys are really loving their ice cream.

But I think it's appalling that the labelling regulations

allow retailers to sell ice cream

with not one drop of cream in it at all.

Whatever will they whip up next?

We asked DEFRA why they allowed this. They said,

"EU regulations make a derogation or exception for certain products

"where the name of a traditional food

"such as CREAMED potato, CREAM crackers and BUTTER beans

"describes a dairy characteristic,

"even though there's no dairy product in it,

"and ice cream is one of the names given such an exception."

Now, the big problem with labels is the small print.

And with so many labels on foods these days,

how many of us can honestly say we look at them closely

whilst we're out shopping?

I do find some labels confusing.

One of the problems is there is a lot of information,

so you could spend all day walking around a supermarket

trying to gauge the pros and cons of each item you pick off the shelf.

You have to search through the packaging,

round the packaging sometimes, to look at what the contents are.

I sometimes look at the labels

but I don't really pay much attention to what it says.

A staggering 76% of the adult population

wear glasses or contact lenses,

and only 30% of them wear their glasses when they're out shopping.

So no wonder food labelling gets overlooked.

But even if you're paying attention,

labels can be very misleading.

Guideline daily amounts were introduced by the government

over a decade ago,

to give an idea of the amount of calories, fats, salt and sugars

that an average person should consume in a day.

Food manufacturers now list on packaging

what percentage of your GDA a food contains.

It's an initiative to help fight obesity.

But, you know, the way the food manufacturers

use these labels can actually be a bit confusing,

and it gives the impression that the product

is so much more healthy than it actually is.

Take pizzas, for example.

Some manufacturers say that a quarter slice is a portion.

Other manufacturers say that the whole pizza is a single serving.

And, clearly, there's a massive difference.

Jenny Driscoll, of consumer champions "Which?"

has been looking at the problem which is confusing consumers.

What we've seen with pizzas

is that some of the food manufacturers will actually say,

"Right, we're going to assume you're just eating a slice."

Others assume you're eating a whole pizza.

Now the thing is, if they're just assuming

that you're going to eat a slice,

it means that they can actually say, "Right, OK, this is lower

"in terms of the amount of salt and sugar and fat

"that you should take in that particular day."

A lot of us will eat more than a slice of pizza.

What we want to see is uniform information.

We don't want any opportunity for food manufacturers

to be able to present the information in an unrealistic way.

Someone with a very clear idea

of what pizza portion should be is Graciana.

His restaurant has been making pizzas

for an appreciative clientele for over 40 years.

One person receives a whole pizza.

12 inch or 30cm in diameter,

which coincides with the plates that we serve them in,

which is the generally accepted standard

whenever you go into a restaurant,

and that's what a customer would expect from us.

Er, can I get the Pizza Pescatore?

-Could I have the Pizza Pollo, please?

-Pizza Pollo.

If I were to present a quarter of a pizza

as a portion to one of my diners,

I'm sure they would throw it back at me,

because not only does it look wrong,

they would ask me, "Where's the rest of it?"

In a restaurant, you'd expect to get a whole pizza,

but today, Graciana's going to carry out an experiment for us.

He'll be serving up a quarter of a pizza to his customers,

which some manufactures and supermarkets

might present as a portion size.

I'm not happy with that. That's not going to fill me up.

But today, a quarter of a pizza is a portion.

When I buy a pizza in the supermarket, I would eat the whole pizza.

To me, that's the portion size.

This is a light morning snack.

Your main courses have arrived!

-Oh, look, lovely!

-Oh, wow, look at that!

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

It's not enough, is it?

Not for a whole meal.

My five year-old kid wouldn't even think that was a portion.

'When supermarkets represent a quarter or a half a pizza

'as a the GDA for the product, I think that it's somewhat sly.'

It would be far more honest for them to put the GDA for the whole pizza.

Putting the GDA for only a quarter of a pizza, I feel, is deceiving,

because I think most people would look at it

and they will read the GDA values very quickly,

and might not notice that it's only proportioning 25% for it.

Portion sizes on all products need to be the same

so that shoppers can instantly see the healthiest option on offer.

And there's a labelling scheme designed to do just that,

based on something we're all very familiar with - a road traffic light.

So products containing a high proportion of your GDA will be red.

The thing which is absolutely going to work

is the same system across the board,

and there's nothing better like the traffic light system.

What could be better than seeing red, amber, green?

What's high in salt, what's high in sugar,

what's high in fat, per 100g.

And if they're high, they'll be red,

and if they're low, they'll be green.

It's that straightforward.

And that's what "Which?" thinks we need on the front of packs.

The traffic-light labelling scheme is voluntary.

In Autumn 2012, the main supermarkets

announced their commitment

to incorporate a consistent scheme into their labelling in the future.

Some think it should be compulsory.

What we do know is that shoppers do want it.

And we do know that, in the future,

obesity is going to be such a massive problem

that we have to do something about it now.

We asked the Food and Drink Federation for their comment.

They said that GDAs are

a powerful tool to help improve the food literacy of UK consumers.

They told us that they achieved consistency

through an industry style guide

and that the government is currently consulting on

additional forms of expression, including the use of colours.

The reality is that food labelling is a nightmare.

And the trick is never to take anything at face value.

But hopefully now, when you're out and about doing your shopping,

at least you'll know what to look out for

to avoid some of those marketing traps set up by the retailers.

Remember, all the information is on the pack.

The trouble is, it's in very, very small writing.

So watch out, or at least bring your glasses.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd