So there you have it. The chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, Deidre Hutton, has put it on public record that the organisation will stop pushing for the adoption of the traffic light nutritional labelling system if independent research comes out in favour of using guideline daily amounts (GDAs). The story is in this week's magazine and on brandrepublic but I have no idea how to link it in to this blog, so sorry about that.

Anyone following this debate will know that the GDA system is the one favoured by the majority of the food industry and Tesco, while a handful of food brands along with Asda, Sainsbury's and the Co-op have gone down the traffic light route.

At the moment this means that things are a bit of a mess so government is keen to move to a single labelling scheme. Easier said than done, of course. While the efforts of companies such as Kellogg (one of the GDA pioneers which has virtually gone global with the scheme) to get its own way have been well documented, brands which support the other system have been quieter, leaving the campaigning to charities and pressure groups.

However I heard at a session last night that the Co-op has been lobbying government hard behind the scenes for the traffic light system so I doubt the retailer, or a company like McCain which has flagged up its Rustics' green light status through its ads, will drop the system without a fight.

As Hutton spoke about preferring to work in partnership with business rather than enforcing change, a single labelling scheme may still be some way away.