Case C-687/26, Groupe Lactalis – Nutri-Score and the letter that replaces the numbers
The Nutri-Score turns a food’s nutrition table into a single letter and colour. The Conseil d’État asks whether the Food Information Regulation allows a Member State to recommend that.
Facts
Groupe Lactalis asked the Conseil d’État to annul the arrêté of 14 March 2025 setting the additional form of presentation of the nutrition declaration recommended by the French State, the Nutri-Score, and a page of Santé publique France’s questions and answers under which milk, drinking yoghurts and flavoured or chocolate milk drinks are scored as beverages rather than as foods. By a decision of 16 June 2026 (No 508230) the Conseil d’État rejected several of Lactalis’s pleas, holding among other things that the Nutri-Score is not a nutrition or health claim within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. It referred two questions on Article 35(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. Lactalis argues that the logo does not distinguish the energy value and the amounts of nutrients in the food, and that the algorithm takes account of elements absent from the nutrition declaration in Article 30: the content of fruit, vegetables and nuts, and sweeteners. The ministry answers that a synthetic representation can better serve consumer understanding, that the content of fruit, vegetables and nuts is directly linked to the amount of fibre, and that sweeteners are covered by Article 10.
Questions Referred
1. Must Article 35(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 be interpreted, first, as allowing a Member State to recommend to food business operators that they affix to the packaging or labels of the foodstuffs they place on the market a graphic representation which supplements the nutrition declaration provided for in Article 30 of that regulation and which does not necessarily specify the energy value and amount of nutrients and, second, as allowing a Member State to recommend the use of a graphic representation which supplements the nutrition declaration and which simplifies and synthesises the overall nutritional value of foodstuffs into a letter or colour code in order to meet the aim, set out in Article 35(1)(c) of that regulation, of facilitating consumer understanding of the nutritional value of the food?
2. If the first question is answered in the affirmative, must Article 35(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 be interpreted to mean that, when an additional form of presentation or expression recommended by a Member State takes the form of a graphic representation which synthesises the nutritional value of foodstuffs into a letter or colour code, it may take into account or show elements which are not among those used for the mandatory nutrition declaration provided for in Article 30 of that regulation but which have a direct link to them or to elements which there is an obligation to mention pursuant to Article 10 of that regulation?
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/4783 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Conseil d’État, 16 June 2026, No 508230 · Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011
Comment
Article 35(1) allows “the energy value and the amount of nutrients referred to in Article 30(1) to (5)” to be “given by other forms of expression and/or presented using graphical forms or symbols in addition to words or numbers”, subject to seven conditions. Among them, the form must be based on sound and scientifically valid consumer research and not mislead, must “aim to facilitate consumer understanding of the contribution or importance of the food to the energy and nutrient content of a diet”, and must be “objective and non-discriminatory”. Article 35(2) then lets Member States recommend “one or more additional forms of expression or presentation of the nutrition declaration”. The Conseil d’État noted that paragraph 1 refers to the energy value and the nutrients cumulatively, while paragraph 2 does not repeat that wording. The first question is whether a score that does not set out either of them is still a form of expression or presentation “of the nutrition declaration”.
If it is, the second question decides what may go into it. The ministry’s position, that fruit, vegetable and nut content is linked to fibre and that sweeteners are linked to a mention required by Article 10, is the “direct link” test the question puts to the Court. A broad reading would let a Member State recommend a score built on whatever factors it considers nutritionally relevant, so long as each can be connected to the declaration; a narrow one would confine the score to the figures the declaration already contains. For Lactalis the practical issue is narrower still: whether its milk drinks may be scored by the rules for beverages. The Conseil d’État has already held that the Nutri-Score is not a nutrition or health claim, so Article 35 is where the case will be decided.