Science Media Centre

The Government has this week launched the public awareness campaign for the new Health Star Rating front-of-pack labelling, aiming to help consumers make healthier choices. The labels have been quietly appearing on a range of packaged food products over the last year; around 1,000 products with Health Star Ratings are now on supermarket shelves. The […]

New research has found that New Zealand ranks highly in a new index of wellbeing based on household consumption. The research, undertaken by economic and policy research institute Motu, drew on OECD student surveys covering almost 800,000 homes across 40 countries. Data on consumer goods, such as household cars and appliances, was collected by the […]

As New Zealand policy-makers examine ways to help consumers make healthy food choices, a new Otago study has shown that keeping it simple works best.   Researchers at Otago University have shown that a front-of-pack ‘Traffic Light system’ (see image) using a red-yellow-green colour code  for high, medium and low salt content helps consumers make […]