Restaurant owners, private individuals, manufacturers… The shortage of sunflower oil, a consequence of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, affects the entire population (Ukraine grows the majority of the sunflower consumed in Europe). Some products that you are used to consuming have therefore had their composition changed urgently, following the implementation of a consumer information protocol. “In the vast majority of products, sunflower oil has been replaced by rapeseed oil, which is healthier”; but “for a minority of others, manufacturers have made the very regrettable choice of replacing sunflower oil with coconut or palm oil, which is very rich in saturated fatty acids”, warns UFC-Que Choisir. .
Problem, manufacturers and distributors are few to report this nutritional degradation to consumers. Worse, contacted by the consumer association, “most refused to reveal to us the levels of saturated fatty acids reached by their reformulated products”, she regrets.
Since the supermarkets did not wish to communicate on the levels of saturated fatty acids, the association carried out an in-depth investigation, comparing the recipes of similar brands with those which had been modified. For this, it relied on the DGCCRF website.
Que Choisir thus regularly updates the products concerned on its site, specifying the impact of the recipe change on the Nutri-Score, “in order to compensate for the total lack of information provided by professionals”.
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