63 days before the deadline expires, Iván Duque's government still does not sign the junk food law

It took two years and some mandatory debates for the bill regulating junk food in Colombia to be approved by the Congress of the Republic on June 17, 2021. Primarily, the initiative seeks to establish a label that warns excess fats, sodium and sugars in food and beverages, and that this information appears in all advertising that is made of the product.

In paragraph four, of article 5 of Law 2120, the Congress of the Republic orders the national Government, through the “Ministry of Health and Social Protection, within a maximum period of one year from the promulgation of this Act, to regulate the provisions of this article”.

There are 63 days before the deadline is reached and President Iván Duque continues to fail to enact the law, which intends to protect children and adolescents between 2 and 19 years old, who consume twice as much of these products as adults in Colombia.

On the morning of this Friday, April 15, representative to the Chamber Mauricio Toro, one of the congressmen who promoted the junk food labeling law, denounced on Caracol Radio:

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In the words of the congressman, the Duque Government and the large industries represented by ANDI, have always been contradictors of the law. The Ministry of Health issued resolution 810 of 2021 “according to them, this measure complies with the implementation of Law 2120″.

This law requires that all products must implement a frontal labeling that incorporates a warning seal, which “must be of high preventive impact, clear, visible, legible, easy to identify and understand for consumers, with messages that warn the excessive contents of critical nutrients”, says the document of the Congress. In it, MinSalud is required that these warnings be “based on the greatest scientific evidence available and free from conflict of interest”.

And so far, evidence would warn that octagonal seals, based on critical nutrients (sugars, sodium and saturated fats), are the most effective in discouraging the consumption of ultra-processed products.

This is stated in a study carried out by researchers from the National University of Colombia, the University of North Carolina and the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana: “72% of participants selected this seal as the one that most reduced consumption intention, compared to other types of frontal labeling such as Quantity Recommended Daily (GDA) (20%), Nutri-Score (9%).”

In resolution 810, the national Government promotes circular labelling and draws on the experience of countries such as Israel to implement them in Colombia. In the interview with Caracol Radio, the representative said that following the recommendation of the Ministry of Health, “to implement the label of the resolution, this may lead to companies in the industry losing billions of pesos, since they will then have to be replaced once the law is signed.”

A few months after the end of the current presidential term, Toro sent a message to President Duque, telling him that the signing of this law is not optional, but mandatory. “There is a silence and while that silence is on the part of the president, the minister is advancing with a labeling contrary to the law and this could be prevaricato, because he is contrary to it,” he concluded in his interview this Good Friday.

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