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

19/09/2023 / infoAlimentario

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

Panama – Ministry of Health publishes draft amendment to regulations on food supplements with therapeutic properties

22/05/2023 / infoAlimentario

The Ministry of Health published a draft amendment to the Resolution “Establishing the regulation for the registration of Vitamin, Dietetic and Food Supplements with Therapeutic Properties.

The purpose of the notified Resolution is to update the current regulations, which date from 29 May 2019, in order to ensure that the sanitary registration process for vitamin, dietary and food supplements is consistent with Law No. 1 of 10 January 2001. The regulations will be updated based on the contributions received from the local industry, the Technical Advisory Committee and other bodies through the national and international public consultations.

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

resolucion_suplementos_dieteticos_v.2_final-1 Download

Brazil – Government eliminates import tax on food supplements

26/08/2022 / infoAlimentario

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) announced, that the federal government reduced to zero the import tax on food supplements, such as protein concentrates (like Whey Protein), creatine, multivitamins and other sports nutrition products to help people who exercise.

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

Article – Brazil: Evaluation of the labelling adequacy regarding whey protein food supplements

31/05/2022 / infoAlimentario

The consumption of food supplements has increased considerably, especially whey protein. Since many users make their choices through the product label, it is important that this information may be transparent for good understanding. For this, there are responsible actors for overseeing whether the information is in accordance with the standard and thus offering safe and quality products to consumers. This study aimed to evaluate the labelling adequacy of whey protein food supplements sold in Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará/BR. A checklist based on Collegiate Board Resolution number 243/2018 was applied to 51 supplement labels, obtained from five stores specializing in nutritional products, thus excluding products with manufacturing data prior to July 2018 and with a foreign language without translation. The identifying labels were obtained from 29 different brands, 25 (92%) of which were domestically manufactured and four (8%) were imported. Non-conformities were found in the layout related parameters and the characters appearance with respect to the product designation, such as background color contrast in the label, designation readability, location of the product designation, boldface designation and designation complemented with the nutrition font from which it was extracted and the method of use. In addition, many filtered products did not contain information about conservation after opening the package. Regarding the product designation “food supplement”, only two (4%) products were suitable. The findings of this study showed that the labelling adequacy of whey protein supplements was not adequate to current legislation and that the industry will take time to adapt its labels to the new resolutions.