Healthy Food Symbols

Two different things wear the same corner of the pack

Some front-of-pack health marks are run by a government agency and are free to any product meeting the criteria. Others are licensing programs run by a charity or trade body, where a qualifying manufacturer applies and pays a fee. Both look equally official, and knowing which is which changes how much weight the mark deserves.

Licensed marks

• Heart-Check — the American Heart Association’s mark. A product must meet the AHA’s criteria for its category, and the manufacturer pays to take part. It certifies that one product, not the brand or the product line.
• Whole Grain Stamp — run by the Whole Grains Council. It states the grams of whole grain per serving, and the 100% version means every grain ingredient is whole grain. The basic stamp does not: a product can carry it and still be mostly refined flour. Paid membership program.
• The Heart Foundation Tick — retired in Australia. A pack still carrying a tick is either old stock or carrying something else that resembles it.

Agency-run marks

• The Keyhole — the green keyhole used across the Nordic countries, administered by national food agencies. Criteria cover fat, sugar, salt, fiber and whole grain within a food category. Free to use for any product that qualifies.
• Healthier Choice — Singapore’s symbol, run by its Health Promotion Board on the same principle: category criteria, no fee, government-administered.
• Health Star Rating — Australia and New Zealand. Half a star to five, in half-star steps, calculated from the product’s own composition.
• Nutri-Score — the A-to-E scale developed in France and adopted voluntarily in several European countries. It is a registered mark licensed on registration, not a per-product certification.

What a health mark does not tell you

• Nearly all grade within a category. A high grade on a breakfast cereal is a statement about other cereals, not about the rest of the shop.
• Absence means nothing. A perfectly qualifying product may simply never have applied, especially where the mark costs money.
• None of them is a medical claim, and none of them supersedes the nutrition panel on the back. The panel is the data; the front mark is a summary someone else made of it.
• Organic, non-GMO and animal-welfare marks are not health marks at all, even though they sit in the same corner of the pack. Those are covered on food brand symbols.

Universal and international food pictograms

Separate from any scheme, a small set of pictograms works where language cannot be relied on: the fork-and-knife figure meaning food or a restaurant, the glass-and-fork mark meaning a material may touch food, a cup for drinking water, and simple heating and refrigeration figures used in commercial kitchens. These are drawn to standard shapes rather than owned by a brand, which is why they travel. The fork-and-knife figure is the ancestor of the emoji version, which is a real character with a codepoint, listed on food symbols to copy and paste. For the nutrition panel and date codes on the same label, see food label symbols.