# Associations between the overall nutritional quality of prepackaged food categories consumed at breakfast or as snacks and the presence of nutrition-related labelling messages: a cross-sectional analysis of products sold in the province of Québec (Canada)

## TL;DR

This study examines how nutrition labels and claims on packaged foods in Quebec relate to their overall nutritional quality.

## Contribution

It identifies inconsistencies in how nutrition claims and labels reflect food quality, especially in breakfast and snack categories.

## Key findings

- Foods with nutrition claims generally had better nutritional quality than those without.
- Products requiring the HC-FOPS symbol were typically less nutritious.
- Some low-quality foods still carried nutrition claims or avoided HC-FOPS, especially in granola bars and breakfast cereals.

## Abstract

In Canada, there are no requirements regarding the healthfulness of foods carrying nutrition claims. Also, as of 2026, most prepackaged foods with a high content in saturated fat, sugars and/or sodium will be required to display Health Canada’s front-of-pack symbol (HC-FOPS), regardless of their overall nutritional quality. This study aims to evaluate the associations between the overall nutritional quality of prepackaged foods and the presence of nutrition claims as well as of HC-FOPS on those foods.

The score from -15 (more nutritious) to + 40 (less nutritious) or the accompanying grade from A to E generated by the Nutri-Score was used to assess the overall nutritional quality of four food categories from the Food Quality Observatory: Breakfast cereals (n = 310), Sliced breads (n = 261), Granola bars (n = 234), and Yogurts and dairy desserts (n = 279). Data were sales-weighted to better represent what consumers are buying.

In all categories, products with nutrition claims had a better overall nutritional quality (i.e. lower sales-weighted mean score) than products without claims (e.g. 8.00 ± 5.70 vs. 12.14 ± 4.41, respectively, for Breakfast cereals; -0.56 ± 3.01 vs. 1.31 ± 2.04 for Sliced breads; 10.16 ± 3.50 vs. 15.56 ± 5.00 for Granola bars; 0.43 ± 1.65 vs. 1.38 ± 2.70 for Yogurts and dairy desserts; all p ≤ 0.0004). Conversely, products which would be required to carry HC-FOPS generally had a lower overall nutritional quality than products which would not carry the symbol. However, additional analyses showed that some less nutritious foods (i.e. graded with letters D or E) carried nutrition claims or would not be required to display HC-FOPS, particularly in the categories of Granola bars (43.2% and 38.5%, respectively) and Breakfast cereals (23.8% and 11.8%).

These findings show that while the presence of nutrition claims and the absence of HC-FOPS are generally indicative of a better overall nutritional quality, inconsistencies persist. This highlights the importance of strong educational campaigns to help consumers use nutrition-related labelling messages adequately. Results could also be used to support a more stringent regulatory framework for nutrition claims and HC-FOPS.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40795-025-01186-z.