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A food industry lobby group is worried the Ministry of Education will set up a new "traffic lights" system for classifying food in schools and that it could be extended into wider food labelling.
The Food Industry Group, which represents the food advertising and marketing sector, has resisted calls from campaigners for labelling that defines foods as red for bad, green for good and amber for neutral, saying the system is subjective and simplistic.
The Education Ministry has set up a review into food at schools amid Government alarm about child obesity and the impact of foods that have high fat, sugar and salt.
Its aims include defining what foods should be available in schools, how they should be labelled and which food companies are appropriate for sponsorship, a ministry spokesman said.
A traffic lights system, similar to approaches used in the UK, is one idea being looked at.
Food Industry Group executive director Robert Bree warned that with activists pushing for more regulations, proposals for a traffic light system, which he called simplistic, in schools could "take on a life of their own".
"Proposals will be considered by a large group where sometimes the loudest voice gets the most attention.
"Our concern is that a system for education becomes a precedent for a traffic lights system elsewhere."
The Ministry of Education's review results will not be released until March and the spokesman said no decision had been made on whether they would recommend a traffic light system.
Bree said this year would be an "interesting" one for the food industry, already bracing for some restrictions on advertising and marketing food.
He said the food industry faced new limits on what it could say in marketing and expected a push to restrict the TV advertising of fast food and high fat, sugar and salt foods during times when children were likely to be watching.
As the food industry prepares to fight against regulation of advertising and marketing, it has won a small skirmish in the food labelling wars.
The NZ Heart Foundation has been running its "tick" campaign for 10 years, spelling out which foods it approves for people trying reduce their intake of unhealthy foods.
But it has done so by providing the tick for categories of food that are traditionally not regarded as healthy - like meat pies and icecream - an approach that drew criticism from health campaigners last year.
The foundation resisted criticism and said the "tick" recommendation would continue to be used for "treat foods" after it commissioned research that showed consumers did not see the tick as an invitation to eat the fatty foods.
The foundation surveyed consumers and found that 91 per cent of respondents did not think that a tick meant they could eat ice cream regularly.
"Most main grocery buyers believe people should limit their consumption of icecream," the survey found.
