Frontal
food labeling
no longer has any further extensions and as
of February 16,
a progressive increase in supermarket products that have this label on their packaging is expected to begin to be noticed.
Actually, there are some products that already have the black seals on the gondolas, but the initiative for now has been timid and it is from the middle of this month that the Government will begin to control
effective compliance
with the standard.
It is not expected that all the products on offer that deserve it will have their black seal placed
overnight
.
This change in the scenery, which seeks to discourage the consumption of some foods, would be gradual.
Although, it is estimated, not slow.
The speed in adapting to the law would have to do, in part, with the diversity of products that each food company has, the previously packaged stocks and, also, the
operational capacity of the printers
to manufacture these labels.
In this sense, the Coordinator of the Food Products Industries (COPAL) would be in talks with the Government with the aim of
"harmonizing the implementation deadlines"
from the starting line scheduled for next Thursday,
said industry sources consulted.
Some products already with black seals in the local gondolas.
Photo: Fernando de la Orden
From the same area, they reported that these days there is a
bottleneck
with graphic providers due to the high demand for labels: while the calendar is pressing, it would not be supplying in a timely manner.
Once that obstacle has been overcome, an instance will then be inaugurated that for now has
more questions than certainties
.
The main question is how the frontal labeling law will impact the habits of the population and, ultimately,
public health.
An aspect not settled in the 2021 legislative debate, nor in the 2022 regulation, was that of the
undesired effects
of the rule.
For example, the arbitrary homogeneity that gives rise to a package of chips and yogurt
sharing a black seal
, with a similar visual impact even when the snack is discouraged from a nutritional point of view and dairy is recommended.
The current challenge for companies seeking to continue selling food on the healthier side of the rift seems to lie in
teaching
.
That is, how to explain to the public that beyond the fact that a product may have a black seal, there are nuances to take into account.
Nuances that, precisely, the law hardly contemplates.
As Clarín
was able to learn
, there are already strategies in progress whose objective is to face this pedagogical task in the gondola: to reach consumers so that the buyer is not paralyzed before the shelf that
does not offer anything other
than containers with black seals.
The black seals that the containers must include when they exceed the established limits.
One of the strategies that is coming, at least for a part of the products that populate the gondolas and refrigerators, is the placement of a
QR code
on the label that provides information on the
nutritional qualities
of the product.
Information that would be readable through the cell phone.
Somehow, the code would "compete" with the black seal.
Or seen in another way, it would be a
complement
to consumer decision making.
The "other black seal" -that square filled with geometric shapes- would thus become the data reservoir that the octagon ignores.
The idea, as they explain, is that by
weighing the black stamp
with the information provided by the QR code, the interested party can draw a more balanced conclusion.
At the same time, this average between good and bad would be more akin to the ductility of the
Nutri-score
labeling system -used in Europe-, which in Argentina and other countries in the region lost the battle against black labels.
Another initiative that they analyze from the food companies is the possibility of modifying the presentation of the
nutritional table
that includes the containers.
Not only make it clearer and more friendly, but also provide context information about the black seal with which the article is loaded and that leads to a more thorough interpretation.
A third action in the pipeline, within the framework of the implementation of front-end labeling, emerges as the most
challenging
: offering the same product on shelves with and without black seals -obviously, with and without the ingredients that determine the stigma-, to that the buyer decides if he is willing to give up
certain flavors and textures
for the benefit of his health.
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