Food manufacturers must comply with new front-of-pack labelling requirements

New health-related front-of-pack labelling requirements came into effect in Canada on July 20, 2022. These rules require most packaged foods to display a magnifying-glass symbol on the front of packages to help consumers identify products that are high in saturated fat, sugars and/or sodium. Manufacturers will have until January 1, 2026 to comply with the new labelling requirement.

These changes were first proposed and the subject of a public consultation in 2018 – and prior to that, they grew from the Food Labelling Modernization Initiative in 2013. They come a little over six months after the latest round of labelling changes introduced in December, 2021, affecting the Nutrition Facts Table, and ingredient list formats on packaging.

Under the latest rules, most pre-packaged foods that either meet or exceed 15 percent of the daily value of saturated fats, sugars or sodium will need to display the new symbol.

Although there is a grace period, manufacturing businesses and their legal departments should start to prepare to ensure they are complying with these new regulations by the 2026 deadline, according to Pei Li, partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.

“It starts with reviewing your pre-packaged product lines, and conducting an assessment to determine whether or not you fit under the general category of pre-packaged products and, without any exception, you do need to comply with these requirements,” says Li.

There are three categories of notable exceptions to the rule:

• Health-related exemptions: Foods that have a recognized health protection benefit, or are important sources of shortfall nutrients (eg canned vegetables, milk products, eggs)
• Technical exemptions: Single-ingredient foods such as whole cut of meat or poultry, and foods not sold directly to consumers, that come in very small packages (eg coffee creamers, tabletop packages, condiments)
• Practical exemptions: Foods on which the nutrition symbol would be redundant, such as packages of sugar, honey, maple syrup, table and flavoured salt, butter and other fats and oils

Given the three-and-a-half year grace period, Li suggests that some manufacturers might wish to consider reformulating their products to avoid having to comply with the new labelling requirement.

“If you are planning a label refresh already in the coming year or two, it’s worth considering whether you have enough time to make some tweaks to your formulation, such that you wouldn’t need to put symbols on the front of your pack,” she says.

Businesses must take care to ensure that they know whether or not their product is eligible for an exemption to the labelling rule.

“The devil is in the details,” says Li. “As with many food labelling requirements, a lot of these rules and exceptions are very technical, so it’s really worth taking the time to look at the nutrient profile of your food and where you fall.” Foods that are served in smaller serving sizes such as cookies and breakfast cereals typically have a lower threshold of 10 percent daily value, instead of 15 percent, for example.

While some countries including the US, UK and Australia have a voluntary labelling system, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency decided on a mandatory model for Canada.

“It remains to be seen what the effects will be long-term,” says Li.