“Two out of three consumers have already chosen a food product because of its Eco-score favorable and, as many have given up a purchase for the opposite reasons”, slips Caroline Vignaud, R & D manager of
FoodCheri and
Seazonmeal delivery services, listing a list of figures that would testify to the successful launch of the Eco-Score.
In January 2021, nine food players – Foodcheri and Seazon therefore, but also Yuka,scullionthe organic online grocery store
The fork…- launched the experimentation of this environmental labeling on a range of products and ready meals on their shelves.
400,000 products and 100,000 dishes and recipes with an Eco-score
This is therefore one more label for consumers to decipher after the Nutri-score, which appeared from 2016 in France and which provides information on the nutritional value of food products. The Eco-score is not only inspired by the name, it also copies the annotation system, with grades and colors that vary from A on a green background to E on a red background depending on the impact. product environment. A year later, the Eco-score was calculated on more than 400,000 food products, 100,000 dishes and recipes. Not only in the catalog of the nine founders, but also those of large retailers who have joined the experiment along the way. Like Lidl and Carrefour this summer, or even Intermarché since this fall. “More than 4 million people have already consulted the Eco-score and one in five consumers have already heard of it”, assures the group based on the latest “Shopperscan” study by
Institut Iri, a market research company.
A lever towards more sustainable consumption?
It was the first objective with the Eco-score. To be known and recognized as quickly as possible by consumers to the point of becoming a lever for modifying purchasing behavior towards something more sustainable. With the hope also to involve the industrialists in the movement. They have everything to gain by listening to Lucas Lefebvre, co-founder of La Fourche where 3,372 products are displayed with an Eco-score. “The share of A-rated products increased by three points in our sales volumes, from 20.80% to 23.83%,” he said.
The stakes are high as agriculture and food represent a quarter of the carbon footprint of households, recalls the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe). “In one year, we have shown the feasibility of an environmental display, welcomes Shafik Asal, co-founder of the consulting firm
ECO2 Initiative, in the nine food players who launched the experiment. On a large scale and immediately. That is to say without waiting for the approval of the State, which is also working on the creation of environmental labeling in food and other key sectors such as textiles. In February 2020,
the anti-waste law for a circular economy (Agec) accelerates by paving the way for experimentation with a view to developing a harmonized system. That is to say with a single method for calculating the environmental impacts of all food products and a single display format for consumers. A few months later, Ademe launched
a call for applications in this sense to which eighteen public and private actors had responded to the closing, on March 31st.
The Eco-Score, not alone in the running
Starting a few months in advance, the Eco-score ended up being added to this experiment. “Of the eighteen projects, most focused on a specific issue – taking into account the different farming methods for example – and did not go so far as to develop a complete method for calculating the applicable environmental impacts. to all food products”, explains Johanna Tourchaud, from Synabio, a trade association for organic food companies.
There is still another project that has gone as far as the Eco-score with the idea, precisely, of not leaving the field open to it. It’s the Planet-score, displayed to date on 3,000 food products on several e-commerce sites of major distributors (Biocoop, Lidl, Naturalia, etc.). Behind, we find mainly
the Institute of Organic Agriculture and Food (ITAB), as well as a long list of supporters. Including Synabio but also the WWF, the UFC-Que Choisir, or even
Auchan which has just joined the Planet-score after having nevertheless experimented with its own environmental display
– The Global Rating- in 2018.
Agribalyse and life cycle analysis as a starting point
Yes, yes there is something to get lost in… Especially since the Eco-score and the Planet-score have similarities. Starting with how to restore the overall score. From A on a dark green background to E on a red background. The calculation of the environmental impacts of products also starts, in both cases, from the same starting point: Agribalyse, a public database developed by Ademe and in which it measured the environmental impact of 2,500 food products, reasoning in terms of
Life cycle analysis (LCA). “The advantage of this method is to seek to quantify the environmental impacts of a product from farm to fork, explains François Martin, general manager of Yuka (Eco-score team therefore). It therefore takes into account the use or not of pesticides, the water consumption necessary for manufacturing, the number of kilometers traveled to the consumer and many other factors. »
In Agribalyse, the ACV is returned in the form of a score out of 100. The work is titanic, but has its limits. “The score is calculated for a family of products – chocolate biscuits for example – and therefore does not distinguish between the different brands, continues François Martin. Some impacts are not taken into account equally or very little. The impact on biodiversity for example, or plastic pollution. »
To each his own method to complete Agribalyse
It is therefore necessary to supplement Agribalyse. Eco-Score and Planet-score agree on this point, but disagree on how to do it. The first adds to the ACV by a bonus-penalty system based on new criteria: “The labels (to better differentiate agricultural practices), the origin of the ingredients used, the recyclability of the product”, lists the general manager of Yuka.
Well seen ? “This method does not make it possible to make intra-category differences,” says Johanna Tourchaud. It is necessary to go further in the complexity, by directly taking up certain LCAs, that is to say by adding new criteria to them in the calculation of the score out of 100. This is what the Planet-score does. Another difference is on the display. The Eco-Score simply restores the overall score. A logo considered simple, easy to identify and easy to understand.
Too much ? “72% of them would thus like to obtain more information on the methodology for calculating this score in order to better understand its results”, indicated Carrefour, on November 30, in the restitution of two customer studies relating to the Eco- Score. Precisions brought precisely by the Planet-Score. “Below the overall score, we give the evaluation of the product in three sub-categories: biodiversity, pesticides and the climate (carbon impact), continues Johanna Tourchaud. And we also add information on the breeding method. These clarifications make it possible to better understand the overall score but also ensure greater transparency. »
An official method expected by the end of the year?
One thing is certain: the experiment led by Ademe aims to achieve a single harmonized environmental labeling system. It shouldn’t be quite the Eco-score, nor quite the Planet-score, but a mix of both. A report, drawn from the analysis of the eighteen display methods proposed last March and from additional work, must be submitted to parliament in mid-February, according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition. “There will still be months of work to develop this harmonized methodology, plan a verification system, define the governance that will frame the system…, says Shafik Asal. The official method is expected for the end of 2022 with a deployment expected in early 2023. “We will merge with this one when it is ready and operational”, assures Shafik Asal. On the Planet-score side, we cite red lines that the methodology adopted by the State should not cross. “Pesticides and the method of breeding must be taken into account in their proper importance in the calculation method”, slips, for example, Johanna Tourchaud.