MARKETING

Labelling. The Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Labelling met in Asunción, Paraguay, during the last weeks of October. The gathering was organized jointly by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to discuss some draft projects on food labelling at a global scale. The organizations hope that these documents will serve as models to implement public policies related to labelling all over the world.

In this regard, the meetings were structured around three main themes. The first one was the draft revision of the General Standard for the Labelling of Prepackaged Foods regarding Date Marking, which modifies the existing regulation. The second was the Proposed Draft Guidance for the Labelling of Non-Retail Containers. The third issue under consideration was the Discussion Paper on consideration of issues regarding Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labelling.

Among the conclusions concerning the revisions on date marking of prepackaged foods, the attendees agreed to modify the initial draft, which was deemed too ambiguous as it could be interpreted that foods were destined to be consumed before a certain date due to health security reasons, thus ignoring non-perishable products. It was therefore clarified that exemptions to expiration date marking of products will not apply if the food’s security is compromised.

As regards the second topic, India presented its Proposed Draft Guidance for the Labelling of Non-Retail Containers. Comments were made on the document’s wording at the committee sessions, such as reducing the number of paraphrased passages from other documents.

To conclude, the participants analyzed the Discussion Paper on consideration of issues regarding Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labelling presented by Costa Rica. However, the draft guidance document which the organizers were expecting was not presented, as it was not prepared by the country in charge. The committee members welcomed the Caribbean nation’s document and proposed amendments, chief among them was the recommendation to include a definition of the labelling with simplified nutritional information.

Next steps

In the case of the Draft Guidance for the Labelling of Non-Retail Containers, India was put in charge of working on the document along with the United States and Costa Rica, in order to correct the text incorporating the recommendations made by other member states and preparing a revised proposal for the next committee session, to be held in 2018.

On the other hand, Costa Rica must work with New Zealand to reform the text on the considerations on Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labelling, bearing in mind the observations presented. The document should be approved in 2018, whereas the whole chapter is expected to be completed after 2020.