The Government regulated the Frontal Labeling Act and companies will need to start adapting food packaging

The Government published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette the regulation of the Frontal Labeling Law, which must warn the population in food packaging with excess components that may be harmful to health such as sugars, sodium and saturated fats, among others.

The standard seeks to “guarantee the right to health and healthy eating, providing simple and understandable nutritional information, to promote assertive and active decision-making and safeguard the rights of consumers”, and was stuck in Congress for a year. It was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in October 2021.

After its promulgation last November, this morning, through Decree 151/2022, the Executive Power approved “the regulation of Law No. 27,642 on the Promotion of Healthy Eating”.

In this way, companies will have to start adapting food packaging according to the technical specifications detailed in an annex accompanying the document published in the Official Gazette.

They are reached by the initiative “all persons, human or legal, of a public or private nature, with or without profit, who manufacture, produce, process, fractionate, package, order packaging or manufacture, distribute, market, import, have placed their mark or integrate the food value and marketing chain and alcoholic beverages for human consumption” throughout the country. Commercial premises or points of sale, “whether physically or online”, are also “subject to compliance with these regulations”.

In this way, packaged non-alcoholic foods and beverages will be required to wear an indelible black warning seal on the main face for each critical nutrient in excess: sugar, sodium, saturated fat, total fat and calories. That is, they can carry one or more black stamps.

As appropriate, they will include: “Excess in sugars”, “excess in sodium”, “excess in saturated fat”, “excess in total fat” and “excess in calories”. These legends must be on black octagons, with white borders and letters in capital letters, and their size may not be less than 5% of the surface of the front face of the package.

The law establishes the same prevention for cases of higher caffeine values and to alert about the content of sweeteners not recommended for children and adolescents. In these cases they must bear the legends “contains caffeine, avoid in children” and “contains sweeteners, not recommended for children”, respectively.

The initiative envisages a two-stage schedule in relation to the limits established to determine the excess of critical nutrients and energy values and the presence of sweeteners and/or caffeine. The first within nine months from the date of entry into force of the law and 15 months for Small and Medium Enterprises.

While the second stage establishes a period of no more than 18 months since its entry into force and 24 months for SMEs. As a result of this schedule, during the debate in Congress, legislators had anticipated that there could be almost two years of transition until it finally embraces the food and beverage chain contemplated.

With regard to infringements, it is anticipated that the penalties provided for by UND 274/19 and the Consumer Protection Act (24,240) will be applied, as appropriate. The Commercial Loyalty regulations set penalties according to an amount equivalent to between 1 and 10,000,000 Mobile Units, each equivalent to 40.61 pesos: the maximum value is around 400 million pesos, according to the January 2020 update. With regard to the Consumer Protection Act, the amounts have not been updated for 10 years and the current maximum is 5 million pesos.

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