IGD and Portion Sizes

Understanding approaches to portion size

IGD’s Industry Nutrition Strategy Group formed a working group to start looking at portion size in 2008. The outputs from the group can be downloaded below:

Portion size of pre-packaged foods and drink and consumption behaviour
Previous work on portion size highlighted some key areas for further work. The INSG wanted to gain a clear understanding of the current evidence base for portion size of pre-packaged foods and consumption behaviours and recommend where future research should focus. With improved knowledge businesses will be better placed to optimise portion size and communication. We publish our findings and recommendations in our 2012 report: ‘Portion size of pre-packaged foods and drink and consumption behaviour’.

A review of existing approaches
The first stage of our work was to map approaches to portion size by a range of organisations. We found there was some inconsistency in the way in which portion size information was communicated to consumers, for example in the terminology used. We published our findings in our 2008 report 'Portion size: A review of existing approaches'.

The consumer perspective
Following the recommendations of the 2008 report, we carried out research to look at consumers’ understanding and attitudes to portion size information presented on food and drink products. The results were published in our report 'Portion size: Understanding the consumer perspective'.

Learnings from healthcare professionals
Dietitians and nutritionists working therapeutic practice regularly advise their patients and clients about portion size. We surveyed the views of healthcare professionals about the most effective ways to communicate portion size. The findings are available in our report 'Portion size communication in therapeutic practice'.

Voluntary guidelines on communicating portion size to consumers
These voluntary guidelines have been developed based on the findings of our research. They do not offer a method for determining portion size and/or state what the portion size of food and drink products should be. They focus on communication of portion size including advice on labelling packaged retail goods, communication to customers by caterers, and general consumer communications. The results were published in our report 'Voluntary guidelines on communicating portion size to consumers'.