Brazil – End of the deadline for compliance with DRC N° 243/2018 on food supplements

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Last July 27 was the deadline for companies to adapt their products to the new regulations for foods categorized as dietary supplements. Collegiate Council Resolution (RDC) N° 243, published in 2018, created the category “food supplement” and granted a five-year adaptation period for products already on the market.

Within that period, these products could be manufactured, imported and marketed in accordance with the standards applied in their regularization, with no changes in formulation or labeling.

With the end of the deadline, 3,179 products that were exempted from Anvisa registration by the new regulation had their registrations cancelled. From now on, these products can only be manufactured and imported if they fully comply with the requirements established by the new regulation. They must also be regularized before the local health surveillance agency, by means of a notice of commencement of manufacture or importation.

The standard also allows the marketing until the end of the validity period established on the label of ineligible products that were manufactured and imported before July 27, 2023.

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

Paraguay – INAN publishes public consultation on modification of Resolution on food additives and alcoholic beverages

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The National Institute of Food and Nutrition (INAN in Spanish) published the public consultation on: Draft Resolution of the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, which approves the MODIFICATION OF RESOLUTIONS GMC No. 53/98, 54/98, 07/06 AND 08/06 ON FOOD ADDITIVES and the MERCOSUR TECHNICAL REGULATION ON DEFINITIONS RELATED TO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES (EXCEPT FOR FERMENTED THOSE), THEIR RAW MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES (REPEAL OF GMC RESOLUTION No. 77/94).

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

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Article/Peru – Nutritional information on the labels of processed and ultra-processed foods and beverages marketed in a supermarket chain in Lima in 2022

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Objectives.

To estimate the number of processed and ultra-processed beverages and foods that provide nutritional information on their packaging, and to describe the characteristics of this information, as well as to determine the presence of nutritional information on products with octagons.

Materials and methods.

Photographs were taken of the labels of 4404 processed and ultra-processed beverages and foods marketed in supermarkets in Metropolitan Lima. The information on the label was collected and registered in the mobile and web version of the Food Label Information Program (FLIP). We analyzed variables related to the nutritional information, the way in which such information is declared and the information in beverages and foods with octagons.

Results.

Only 71.4% of the products had some type of nutritional information. Of these, 13.8% provided the nutritional information as a text and not in a table, and only 56.3% declared it per 100 grams or milliliters. Of the total number of foods with the octagon “Contains trans fats”, only 19.2% declared their content.

Conclusions.

More than a quarter of the beverages and packaged foods in the Peruvian market did not provide nutritional information of any kind, and of those that did, only one did so in different formats and units. In addition, we found that a proportion of beverages and foods for each type of octagon did not declare information of the nutrient that is mentioned in the octagon.

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

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Peru – INACAL approves technical standards for meat, fish and corn glucose products

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The Ministry of Production (Produce) approved through Directorial Resolution No. 011-2023-INACAL/DN a series of Peruvian technical standards developed under the coordination of National Quality Institute (INACAL in Spanish). The Resolution updates product standards for food additives, agriculture, livestock, forestry and fisheries.

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

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Article/Brazil – The end of the human right to adequate food and nutrition

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In front of the relevant theme of the right to adequate food and nutrition, we seek, through bibliographical and documental research, to understand its complexity and its framework as a fundamental human right, according to a critical, plural and counter-hegemonic perspective. The relevance of the theme is based on the serious state of food insecurity that permeates, in particular, the Brazilian reality, requiring understanding the complexity of the concept of the right to adequate food and nutrition, its normative prescriptions and food sovereignty. The main objective is to critically and counter-hegemonically understand the human right to adequate food and nutrition. Specific objectives are to investigate: (1) the foundations of the human right to adequate food and nutrition; (2) the normative provisions guaranteeing the right under study; and (3) the critical reading of human rights and their relationship with the right to adequate food and nutrition. As for the methodology, bibliographical and documentary research is used, starting from dialectical historical materialism and the critical theory of human rights. It’s concludes that the effectiveness of the human rights to adequate food and nutrition goes through food sovereignty, in the sense of providing not only food, but culturally adequate food for the uniqueness of the population being treated, according to a critical view of this right as a human right.

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

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