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Mexico´s Labeling Regulation and the Industry´s Strive Toward Compliance

Nearly six months after the enaction of NOM-051 about front-of-package labeling for foods and non-alcoholic beverages, a webinar of Enlace EXPO PACK 2021 brought companies up to date on the progress made and the challenges of its implementation.

CANAINCA, is the only organization that represents the industries dedicated to processed foods manufacturing in Mexico.
The facts presented at the webinar by the director of CANAINCA, Jonás Murillo, and Estephani Paniagua, Technical Coordinator at the entity, summarized the perceptions of a wide portion of the guild’s associates. This is the only organization that represents the industries dedicated to processed foods manufacturing in Mexico.

On the shelves of Mexican stores and supermarkets, consumers are now seeing the products they have traditionally purchased with changes in presentation, packaging, and formulation. Many of them now include warning octagonal labels for high content levels of sugar, fats, sodium, or calories that exceed the caps set by the amendment to NOM-051, published and put in force by the Economy and Health ministries of Mexico in October of 2020.

The new norm was announced to the Mexican industry on March 27th, 2020, six months before its rollout, at a time when mobility restrictions and the request of a citizens’ self-imposed lockdown made by the authorities marked the beginning of a period filled with drastic disruptions in every-day activities on all fronts.

Despite these extraordinary circumstances, deadlines for companies to adapt their products and packages to new regulatory demands were not modified. The disruptions of supply chains, and the categorization of certain sectors of vendors as non-essential (packaging manufacturing, for instance), made the requirements established by the norm even more critical for food and beverage processing companies.

CANAINCA, is the only organization that represents the industries dedicated to processed foods manufacturing in Mexico.The facts presented at the webinar by the director of CANAINCA, Jonás Murillo, and Estephani Paniagua, Technical Coordinator at the entity, summarized the perceptions of a wide portion of the guild’s associates. This is the only organization that represents the industries dedicated to processed foods manufacturing in Mexico.

Facing this panorama, Jonás Murillo, General Director of CANAINCA (National Chamber of the Canned Foods Industry), detailed the background for these new regulations, that are forcefully impacting the sector’s companies, in a recent webinar called Factors and Challenges in Front-of-Package Labeling of Foods, and the Industry’s Response in Mexico. The facts presented by Jonás Murillo and Estephani Paniagua, Technical Coordinator at CANAINCA, summarized the perceptions of a wide portion of the guild’s associates. This is the only organization that represents the industries dedicated to processed foods manufacturing in Mexico. Due to the size of the joint output of its associates, rising to 8 million tons of farming and fishing products every year while reaching 70% of Mexican households and 127 million people, the scenario presented by CANAINCA at the webinar precisely reflects the industry’s situation facing NOM-051’s compliance exigency.

Preparation times were not considered for labeling regulation changes.Up till now, the journey has not been easy, said the webinar’s presenters, due to external as well as internal factors. Legislators did not adequately consider preparation times for companies to comply with the standards set by the norm.

A Difficult Route to Transit

With the enactment of phase one of the nutritional profiling of the norm on October 1st, 2020, and the enforcement of frontal labeling that includes warnings about the excessive contents of some elements, a process that includes two more stages began. This was explained by Estephani Paniagua: the second phase of nutritional profiling which includes changes for sodium and calories contents in liquids, and the third phase (starting on October 1st, 2025) will definitively incorporate all established values including elements present in the product itself, not only in critical added ingredients.

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