VEVEY, SWITZERLAND — Nestle S.A. and Cereal Partners Worldwide (C.P.W.), the international breakfast venture between Nestle and General Mills, have announced they will begin using Nutri-Score labeling in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland starting in the first half of 2020.

Nutri-Score is a color-coded, voluntary front-of-pack labeling system that classifies foods and beverages according to their nutritional profile. The system ranges from A (healthier choices) to E (less healthy choices). It first was introduced in 2017 by the French national public health agency.

In total, more than 5,000 products in the five countries will feature Nutri-Score, Nestle said.

“Our ambition is to have one of the healthiest options in every product category we offer,” said Marco Settembri, chief executive officer of Nestle for Europe, Middle East and North Africa. “Nutri-Score will motivate us and help track our progress. I am proud that Nestle is the first company to roll out Nutri-Score at this scale in Europe. We now want to move quickly as we are sure this is the right way forward.”

Nestle said Nutri-Score will appear on a variety of brands, including plant-based products from Garden Gourmet, Nesquik chocolate-flavored milk, Buitoni pizzas and Maggi culinary products.

Meanwhile, Nutri-Score will be used by C.P.W. on its breakfast cereals, including Fitness and Chocapic.

“Our pursuit of a better breakfast is never finished,” said David Clark, president and c.e.o. of C.P.W. “As leaders in the breakfast cereal sector, we can help everyone have a healthy, nutritious and tasty start to the day with our cereals. Our consumers are at the heart of this quest — past, present and future. That’s why we’re using Nutri-Score to guide the development and communication of the nutritional value of our products.”

Nestle and C.P.W. said they already have begun rolling out Nutri-Score in the European countries that support the labeling system.

“BEUC, the European Consumer Organization, applauds Nestle’s decision to broadly roll out Nutri-Score,” said Monique Goyens, director-general of BEUC. “Research conducted in several countries demonstrate indeed that Nutri-Score is currently the best-performing scheme in aiding consumers to make healthier choices. Therefore, we consider Nutri-Score to be a major tool to contribute to tackling the obesity crisis. We can only recommend that other companies follow Nestle’s excellent example and display Nutri-Score on their products. Moving forward, we believe that all European consumers should benefit from Nutri-Score. This is why several consumer organizations, who are members of the BEUC network, have launched a petition asking the European Commission to make Nutri-Score mandatory across Europe.”