COCA-COLA is to adopt the Government's voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labels in a turnaround in response to consumer support for the scheme.

The single system of ­traffic-light coded labels and Reference Intakes (RIs) indicating how much fat, salt and sugar an item contains were introduced last year with the aim of ending confusion among shoppers.

Coca-Cola at the time said that "after careful consideration" it would not be adop-ting the system.

However, yesterday it announced that its UK customers wanted a consistent labelling scheme across all food and drink products.

It said its adoption of the new labels was consistent with the company's global commitment to provide consumers with transparent nutrition information.

Jon Woods, general manager of Coca-Cola UK and Ireland, said: "We carefully considered the new scheme when it was announced last year, but decided to continue with the single-colour GDA (guideline daily amounts) system that was tried and tested across Europe.

"We have monitored the labelling scheme since it started to appear in-store and asked shoppers in Great Britain for their views.

"Our UK consumers have told us they want a single, consistent front-of-pack labelling scheme across all food and drink products."