Nutritional labelling of food products purchased from online retail outlets: screening of compliance with European Union tolerance limits by near infrared spectroscopy

Nutritional information provided on food labels can impact healthy dietary decisions of consumers. The accuracy of the information provided is of paramount importance to guide consumers’ food choices and prevent food-related chronic diseases. The present study aimed to verify the veracity of nutritional labels of 103 food products purchased online through well-known e-commerce websites (80 processed and 23 unprocessed items) using near infrared spectroscopy. Among processed food products, surprisingly, 28 food products out of 80 (35%) did not bear nutritional labels. Considering the European tolerances for nutrient values declared on a label, the comparison of experimental values with those reported on the labels showed that more than 74% of the values declared on the label were congruent with the NIR experimental data, whereas 7.5% of the label values were non-compliant with the tolerance limits, and about 11.3% were slightly outside the tolerance limits. Note that 6.6% of the values indicated in the labels did not abide the regulation at all. Finally, 35.8% of the samples showed at least one value outside the tolerance limits. The current study demonstrated the capability of NIR spectroscopy for monitoring the compliance of nutritional labels with EU tolerance limits and guiding the choice of reference methods for further confirmation purposes. Graphical Abstract