RadioProfile | Front labeling: companies design strategies to preserve sales

More than a year after the regulation of the Law for the Promotion of Healthy Eating, which establishes the obligation to report excess sugar, fat, calories and sodium in food and beverages, the panorama of Argentinean gondolas has changed considerably. The black octagons are beginning to populate most of the packaging, the characters that promote their sale are disappearing and the debate is burning on social networks, while some suggestive delays persist.

The big companies, which put up a stiff resistance during the debate, are now focused on devising strategies to preserve their sales. One of them would add a QR code on the label, with information on nutritional qualities, as a “balance”; another, to modify the nutritional table that includes the packages to make it clearer and more informative; the last one is more disruptive: offering the same product with and without the seal (that is, with and without the ingredient that makes it unhealthy), so that everyone can make their purchase decision. But in the midst of negotiations on the electoral framework, politics does not seem willing to reopen the discussion on the octagons that are already changing the eating habits of a good part of Argentines.

Listen to Pablo Corso’s complete column on Radio Perfil.

by Pablo Corso