NUTRITION

Labelling. The XXI International Nutrition Congress took place in Argentina from October 15th to 20th under the auspices of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS), an institution that unites various nutritionists’ organizations worldwide. Among the event’s conclusions, attendees agreed on joining forces to achieve unified labelling requirements for food products in Latin America.

During this congress participants shared experiences in different countries regarding this issue. For instances, Professor Michael Rayner from Oxford University, who was in charge of developing the Food Standard Agency (FSA) nutritional profile, based on the “Nutritional Stoplight” used in the United Kingdom since 2006, stated that this successful labelling model falls within the “European system” and is present in 60% of packaged foods.

On the other hand, Professor Marcela Reyes from the National Nutrition and Food Technology Institute at the University of Chile, presented the Chilean experience on the matter. Their system comprises black octagonal seals warning consumers when the product has a high content of salt, sugar, saturated fats or calories.

In this regard, Esteban Camuerga, Scientific Director of the Center of Studies on Child Nutrition (CESNI), explained that there are 95 different models of nutritional profiles in use worldwide. Even though Latin America only started implementing them in 2015, this is the region showing the fastest progress: “too fast” as the expert admitted.

Beyond the various national experiences, the professionals in attendance agreed in highlighting the importance of standardizing nutritional profiles and frontal food labelling systems in the region.

Next steps

Beyond the consensus at IUNS regarding the need to achieve unified regional labelling requirements, this remains a complex task, due to national sovereignty as applied to internal regulations.