Green Checkmark

You will soon see them on food and cereal boxes in your local supermarket and in future commercials touting that these green checkmarks are designed to "to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.”

It is part of a new 'Smart Choices campaign' and the types of foods that have been approved are Fruit Loops and Cocoa Krispies.

Ten companies have signed up for the Smart Choices program including Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Foods, Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo and Tyson Foods. Companies that participate pay up to $100,000 a year to the program, with the fee based on total sales of its products that bear the seal.

Members of these companies have people on the Smart Choices board. Hmmm! Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, was part of a panel that helped devise the Smart Choices nutritional criteria, until he quit last September. He said the panel was dominated by members of the food industry, which skewed its decisions.

So we have an industry creating a self-serving ranking system, with a Board of their own members to make decisions, for companies who all stand to gain a big profit from this. Sounds like green checks are the new green stamps, but with no value.