Currently, countries are looking to promote healthy eating through front-of-package nutrition labeling. The immediate impact for food manufacturers is clear - it is becoming more difficult to design compliant labels, and the number and types are increasing.
Costa Rican website "adiariocr" reported on August 4, at present, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and other countries have implemented the "pre-packaged food positive nutrition warning label" measures, printed on the front of the food package with text description of the octagonal icon, indicating that the food contains "excessive sugar", "excessive fat", "excessive sodium" and "excessive calories" and so on. To facilitate consumers to make decisions, which is very beneficial for people with diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and other people who need to pay attention to the nutritional content of food.
Regarding the issue of whether nutrition warning labels should be used to indicate excessive sugar, fat, sodium and calorie warning information on food packaging, Costa Rican Health Minister Mary Munive recently said that the Ministry of Health has begun to analyze the current regulations related to food packaging nutrition warning labels and will update them to make them more suitable for Costa Rica's situation.
On June 22, the Health Products Regulatory Agency of Costa Rica's Ministry of Health issued a notice requiring the import of products with nutrition warning labels to hide information about excess nutrients displayed on the original labels.
On August 2, the Ministry of Health issued a communique saying that it is still implementing the existing food labeling regulations in Costa Rica to ensure that consumers have access to clear and valuable food labeling information. Regarding the suspension of nutrition warning labels, the Ministry of Health explained that at present, Costa Rica and other Central American countries do not have a common standard for determining whether foods contain too many important nutrients, such as calories, fat, sugar and sodium. The Ministry of Health has initiated an analysis of the current regulations in Costa Rica with a view to updating them to ensure that the business labels of products on the Costa Rican market are based on the nutritional parameters applicable in Costa Rica.
Mario Montero, executive president of the Costa Rican Chamber of the Food Industry (CACIA), also agreed with the current regulations, noting that nutrition warning labels for imported products are based on nutritional parameters defined by ministries of health, which vary from country to country and can mislead consumers.
However, Nydia Amador, president of the Costa Rican Health Organization, advocates the use of nutrition warning labels, and she said that the octagonal nutrition warning label has a great advantage, that is, it directly indicates the content of excessive nutrients, very straightforward, more clear than the nutrition information sheet used in Costa Rica. In addition, this nutrition warning label has an international scientific basis and has been proven effective in other countries.
