Month: November 2024

Haiti – Haiti grants 3-month deadline for products to comply with labeling standards

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Haiti’s Ministry of Trade and Industry issued a three-month moratorium for manufacturers, importers and distributors of prepackaged foods to comply with new labeling regulations, which require detailed product information in French or Creole.

“In order to protect consumer rights, we inform the general public and economic operators in particular that, as of January 3, 2025, all local and imported products that do not comply with this regulatory provision will not be authorized for sale,” states communiqué MCI/DCQPC/0018/08/24, issued last September 30.

For further information, you can access the original source in Spanish

Uruguay – New register of food companies, premises, vehicles and products

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As of October 2024, all food companies must register their products, premises and vehicles in a single national registry, facilitating the operation, without having to carry out separate procedures in each department.

Through the Single National Registry of Food, Companies and Vehicles (Runaev in Spanish), companies carry out their procedures in a single access, and local intendancies are in charge of processing applications related to their jurisdiction.

Brazil – Anvisa publishes results of monitoring additives and contaminants in food

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The National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA in Portuguese) published the Food Additives and Contaminants in Food (Promac) Monitoring Program Report for the years 2021 to 2023.

The document presents the results of monitoring the content of food additives – benzoic acid, sorbic acid, bromates, artificial colors, sweeteners, nitrates, nitrites and sulfites – and inorganic and organic contaminants: metals (arsenic, cadmium and lead) and mycotoxins (aflatoxins). (e.g., deoxynivalenol – DON and ochratoxin A).

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Guatemala – Congress demands more actions to eradicate malnutrition

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In the framework of World Food Day, which is commemorated every October 16, the Food Security Commission, led by deputy Jairo Danilo Orellana and accompanied by deputies Marleni Matías Santiago, Mercedes Cristabel Guardado, César Rodas and Mario Velásquez, summoned the Minister of Public Health and Social Assistance (MSPAS) to discuss food security programs in the country.

In the absence of the Minister, Edgar González, Vice-Minister of Regulation, Surveillance and Control, attended the meeting to listen to the legislators’ concerns.

The legislators reaffirmed their commitment to promote actions to eradicate hunger, promote healthy eating and combat malnutrition in Guatemala, as established in the statement of the Congress of the Republic, through Resolution Point 15-2024, approved in the forty-first (41st) Additional Ordinary Session, last Tuesday, October 15.

For further information, you can access the original source in Spanish

Brazil – GMOs should only appear on the label if they represent 1% of the product

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Information on the use of genetically modified (transgenic) ingredients only needs to appear on the product label if these represent at least 1% of the total.

The conclusion is from the 2nd Panel of the Superior Court of Justice, which concluded that the limit, imposed in article 2 of Decree 4,680/2003 , is compatible with the Brazilian legal system.

With this, the panel granted the special appeal filed by the Union and the Brazilian Association of Food Industries (Abia) to overturn a ruling by the 1st Region Federal Regional Court that required this labeling in all cases.

The case concerns a public civil action filed with the aim of prohibiting the Union from authorizing or permitting the marketing of any food, packaged or in natura , that contains GMOs without express reference to this information on its labeling.

For further information, you can access the original source in Portuguese