The goalposts are almost in sight (relatively speaking), after several years of extensive research and processes aimed at slashing South Africa’s obesity, diabetes and other non-communicable disease (NCD) burdens, and the closure on 21 September of the public-comment period for new food labelling and marketing regulations.
The R3337 draft regulation proposes black-and-white warning labels on packaging of foods high in added sugar, salt and unhealthy fats, and on foods and drinks containing artificial sweeteners.
The regulations also stipulate restrictions on food companies’ marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks to children – advocated by the World Health OrganiSation since 2010.
South Africa is way behind scores of other countries with more up to date food-related regulations intended to protect public health, reports Daily Maverick, although one aspect of R3337 that is ahead of some countries is in the use of warning labels.
Experts say the proposed regulation is a major improvement on the existing R146, from 2010, which stipulates only basic labelling requirements, though many food producers have voluntarily progressed closer to international best practice, offering more detailed nutrition information on labels than legally required.
Warning label aspect
The R3337 strengthens the warning label aspect, which has been highly successful in reducing consumption of unhealthy foodstuffs in other countries with similarly high levels of obesity and non-communicable diseases as South Africa, like Chile (since 2012) and Ecuador (since 2013).
The protracted process on R3337 has been under way for at least two years.
A critical piece of its creation has been the scientific research that provided the nutrient profiling model forming the basis for both the “too high in…” labelling and the restrictions on marketing of unhealthy foods to children.
Several rounds of expert and internal consultation followed before the draft was first published in January 2023. (The DoH extended the usual three-month period for public comment and re-gazetted the regulation several times due to various avoidable errors in the document.)
Critics of the draft regulation includes Nigel Sunley, a food scientist and labelling consultant who works extensively with the food and beverage industry.
He both commended efforts to improve consumer education about nutrition, and lambasted the DoH attempt to promote warning labels, casting doubt on whether they would influence consumers’ food choices.
“Treating food like tobacco and plastering warnings all over it is very questionable,” Sunley told TimesLIVE in February 2023 after the draft first came out.
“People like sweet things, salty things, things with fat in them. The focus on hitting people over the head for eating these things is, I think, questionable.”
He said public health professionals did not understand what drove consumers’ purchases, nor the complex scientific processes involved in creating food.
Others disagree.
“The reason the DoH is doing this is not to punish anybody,” said Dr Harris Steinman, a medical doctor and CEO of FACTS, a food safety centre in Stellenbosch.
“It’s to try to tackle consumer health to make sure …the food that’s produced benefits the population and, directly, the cost of medical interventions for ill health – especially (related to) obesity and diabetes.”
(The cost to the state of diabetes alone is projected to reach R30bn by 2030.)
Contrary to Sunley’s assertion, the Health Department has drawn on years of local and global research and evidence to formulate the regulations, including consumer behaviour research conducted among focus groups in Soweto.
The groups experienced and assessed different types of warning labels, so researchers could evaluate consumers’ understanding of and preferences for specific label types and approaches.
Expert opinion
Professor Rina Swart, principal investigator and nutrition lead at the University of the Western Cape’s Centre of Excellence for Food Security, former UWC colleague Dr Tamryn Frank, Dr Makoma Bopape of the University of Limpopo, and Dr Safura Abdool Karim, University of the Witwatersrand, formed the research working group (for the DoH) that developed and tested the front-of-pack warning label approach used for R3337, with oversight by an independent advisory committee including nutrition, health, behavioural science and communication experts.
On 14 September, just before the 21 September public comment deadline, the UWC team published Five reasons to support draft labelling regulations R3337, a statement describing its public health benefits.
They include that at-a-glance warning-label information will tell consumers if a product contains high levels of “nutrients of concern”; if it does, it is not allowed to carry health or nutrition claims (removing consumer doubt about claims) and children under 18 will be protected from marketing of these products.
Department ‘to do’ list
The Health Department must now collate, review and decide which submissions are useful and valid additions or changes to the regulations, integrate those into the draft, and then finally legislate the new regulations, passing them into law.
DoH spokesperson Foster Mohale said it was “difficult to give an exact number of comments received” because the department was “still … capturing, collating and reconciling them”, but a “preliminary view indicated they came from individuals, companies, professional bodies, industry associations and international trading partners”.
“Substantive comments will undergo an internal review and discussion, and determinations will be made on acceptance, consideration or rejection”, after which “there will be feedback” and possibly further discussion, Mohale said.
He did not describe the parameters of the decision-making process, nor who would be involved in those decisions.
The timeframe for the final version of R3337s “can only be determined once the above processes are finalised as the substantiveness and need for further engagements is not known at this stage”.
The department is currently processing comments from international trading partners, he said.
The Food Directorate (within the DoH) envisages that the entire process would be finalised “in the latter part of the 2024/2025 financial year”, after which “legal will need to facilitate the gazetting of the next iteration of the Regulations”.
Food producers will have 24 months to comply with the final regulations (i.e, by the end of 2026/2027), though Mohale said that, too, would be reviewed “in line with the comments received and due consideration to the rationale for alternative time frames”.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Flood of responses to food labelling regulations
Activists campaign for easy-to-understand, user-friendly food labelling
New, stricter rules for food labelling
Why SA isnʼt ready for health claims on food labels
Soft drink taxation, advertising and labelling laws significantly impact behaviour