BRA/1567
WTO/SPS
BR Brazil
  • 21 - Miscellaneous edible preparations
2019-12-08
2019-09-27

HS Code(s): 2106; ICS Code(s): 13, 65

Draft Normative Instruction number 708, 13 September 2019, regarding the technical requirements for statement of nutrition labelling for packaged food. Language(s): Portuguese. Number of pages: 37

This draft normative instruction establishes the technical requirements for statement of nutrition labelling for packaged food.

The main objective of this regulation is to review the nutritional facts label requirements to facilitate the decision making by Brazilian consumers. Specific objectives include: (a) improving the visibility and readability of nutritional information; (b) reduce situations that can mislead consumers regarding nutritional composition; (c) facilitate nutritional comparison; (d) improve the accuracy of declared nutritional values; and (e) broaden the scope of nutritional information.

The main normative changes proposed are:

1)    In the nutrition facts table: (a) inclusion of the mandatory declaration of total sugars and added sugars; (b) inclusion of the mandatory declaration of nutritional values per 100g or ml of the product to facilitate the nutritional comparisons; (c) reduction of allowable variability in declared portion sizes, requiring the declaration of the number of portions contained in the package and revision of the rules for individual packaging; (d) review of the reference values for the percent daily value statement, considering the nutritional needs of the Brazilian population; and (e) adoption of specific readability rules to increase standardization, visibility and reading;

2)    The adoption of a front-of-pack nutrition labelling model designed to inform, in a simple, objective and proportional way to achieve the objectives of the regulatory intervention, the high content of added sugars, saturated fats and sodium present in food that shall be declared at the top part of the main panel and meet specific readability requirements to ensure standardization, visibility and readability of information;

3)    Adjustment of the criteria for declaring nutrition claims to avoid the transmission of inconsistent and contradictory information to consumers by adopting specific rules for cases where the product has front-of-pack nutrition labelling. This regulation will be also notified to the TBT committee.