The amendment to the Official Mexican Standard 051 on labelling for food and non-alcoholic beverages was published in the Official Journal of the Federation, where stamps will begin to be seen to warn the public about excess saturated fats, trans, sugars, sodium and calories.
Last Friday, March 27, the Secretariat of the Economy published the general specifications for the new labeling that will begin from 1 October and requires the industry to place black warning stamps as well as the phrases “contains caffeine”, “avoid in children” and “contains sweeteners”.
The goal of the new frontal labelling system is to show truthfully, clearly, quickly and simply when a prepackaged product has excess critical nutrients or other harmful elements, associated with chronic noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
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The publication comes weeks after the Twenty-first Collegiate Court of Circuit in Administrative Matters revoked an amparo imposed by the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) and the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin) to stop the publication of that rule.
As of October 1, all food and non-alcoholic beverage packaging marketed in the country must display a hexagonal black seal warning if their content exceeds the healthy limits of free sugars, saturated fats, trans fats and sodium.
How is it measured if a product is over-something?
Maria del Carmen Iñarritu, a nutritionist and academic at the Faculty of Medicine of UNAM, explains that this new labelling system is based on the Nutrient Profile Model of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
PAHO says that “the criteria for the inclusion of critical nutrients (free sugars, sodium, saturated fats, total fats and trans fatty acids) were based on the population nutrient intake targets set by WHO to prevent obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NSAs)”.
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A food is considered to have excess calories if in 100 grams or in 100 milliliters of product there are 275 kilolaories or more; excess sugars if you have 10% or more free sugars; excess saturated fat if you have 10% or more energy from saturated fats; excess trans fats if it contains 1% or more of these nutrients; and excess sodium if you have 1% or more sodium.
In addition, if the product contains caffeine and artificial sweeteners they will also be labeled.
With the new labeling it is no longer necessary to calculate if a product has an excessive content of unhealthy nutrients, because “the calculation has already been done and you will quickly see that regardless of the level of calories you need to consume, that product in particular is very high in fats or sugars and does not want to consume it”, says the academic of UNAM.
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