The National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil (ANVISA in Portuguese), thru its General Food Directorate (GGALI in Portuguese), invites all interested parties to participate in the virtual sectoral dialog on the regulation of Law No. 15,404/2026, which will be held on August 11, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, via the Microsoft Teams platform.

The meeting aims to present the current status of the work carried out by GGALI, delve into the identified technical issues, and discuss the strategy and next steps for the regulation of the Law. The initiative also seeks to gather the participants’ opinions on regulatory alternatives, the available evidence, and the potential impacts of the measures under evaluation.

During the dialog, topics such as:

• Limits for cocoa shells, peels, and other by-products;
• Criteria for the calculation, declaration, and verification of total cocoa solids;
• Use of other vegetable fats added to chocolate, including their scope, calculation basis, and criteria to verify the 5% limit;
• Relationship between the categories of chocolate defined by the Law and their classification criteria;
• Total solids of milk or dairy products;
• Sale denomination, labeling, and prevention of information that may mislead the consumer; and
• Compatibility of the new Law with the current health regulations, in particular the Collegiate Board Resolution (RDC) 723/2022.

To facilitate the debate, GGALI provides the Basic Document on the regulation of Law No. 15.404/2026: New requirements for cocoa-derived products, which presents the regulatory context, the preliminary analyzes conducted, the demands received, and the main points that require evaluation. It is recommended to read the material beforehand for a better understanding of the meeting.

Participation is open to all interested parties, with no prior registration required.

Access to the meeting will be thru the following link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/27339978101165?p=h9BaBDzWNVwlYqGdjD

The Brazilian Institute of Consumer Protection (IDEC) in collaboration with the editorial office of the School of Public Health of the University of São Paulo (USP) has published an e-book “You Have the Right to Know What You Eat: A Record of the History of Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling from the Perspective of Civil Society,” which gathers unpublished documents, regulatory decisions, scientific studies, and historical records to recount how civil society, academia, and public institutions faced a decade of debates and resistance to approve the new regulation.

The publication notes that, in recent years, scientific studies have increasingly demonstrated the relationship between the consumption of ultra-processed foods and a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and premature mortality.

In this context, front-of-package nutrition labeling has become one of the main public health strategies adopted in several countries to alert the population about products with excessive essential nutrients.

In Brazil, the measure now requires the inclusion of a magnifying glass on the front of the packaging for products that contain high amounts of added sugars, saturated fats, or sodium, allowing consumers to identify this information in seconds without having to decipher complex nutritional tables.

The Second Chamber of the Constitutional Court (TC in Spanish) ordered the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa) to temporarily suspend the sale, distribution, and use of phytosanitary products containing active substances such as chlorpyrifos, methomyl, glyphosate, imidacloprid, and clothianidin, intended for the production of food for internal consumption.

In the ruling (Exp. No. 03269-2023-PA/TC), it also declares the existence of an unconstitutional state of affairs, concluding that the state response to the health and environmental risks generated by these products is structurally insufficient to guaranty the safety of plant-based foods.

The decision was made after declaring the amparo lawsuit filed by the Apurimeña Association of Consumers and Users (AACU in Spanish) and other organizations to be well-founded, as it was proven that there was a violation of fundamental rights to health, life, integrity, the enjoyment of a balanced and adequate environment, and consumer protection, due to insufficient state oversight and regulation of the use of certain pesticides in the production of food intended for domestic consumption.

Likewise, it ordered Senasa, with the participation of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (MIDAGRI in Spanish), the Ministry of Health, and other competent entities, to carry out a comprehensive reevaluation of these substances within a period of 90 business days, considering the available scientific evidence, toxicological information, regulatory experience, and findings on pesticide residues in food.

He also ordered that, within a period of 180 business days, Senasa, Midagri, the Ministry of Health, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and local governments develop and implement an inter-institutional plan to strengthen food safety, which includes the reinforcement of supervision and inspection, health response protocols, access to specialized laboratories, and mechanisms for publicizing monitoring results.