Linda Ensor
27 July 2007
Cape Town — Targeting children with advertising for so-called "junk" or non-nutritional food will be prohibited if draft regulations on the labelling and advertising of foodstuffs gazetted by the health department are promulgated in their current form.
Purveyors of some foods with questionable nutritional value, such as McDonald's and Wimpy -- hot favourites with children worldwide -- will also have to be more forthcoming about the ingredients of their offerings, especially salt, fat and sugar.
The draft regulations list "nonessential" foodstuffs about which no claims can be made on their health, slimming or other benefits. The aim, the health department said yesterday, was to curb the use of misleading information to deceive consumers.
Included in the list are artificially sweetened soft drinks, fruit nectars, soft drinks bearing the word "energy" or "sport" or "power" on their labels, fast foods, savoury snacks, frozen yoghurt, dry soup powders, "health" bars with more than a specified sugar or saturated fat content, and ready-to-eat candy breakfast cereals with high sugar content.
Labels on these products will have to warn consumers to use them in moderation as excessive and regular consumption could lead to weight gain or obesity.
The draft regulations prohibit advertising of listed foodstuffs to children younger than 16. Advertisers of these products will not be able to use "a child actor younger than 16 years or any cartoon-type character or puppet, computer animation or similar strategy or token or gift".
Industry and consumer groups will have three months to comment on the long-awaited draft regulations, which are more detailed and prescriptive than the existing ones. More time will be allowed for international comment as required in terms of World Trade Organisation rules.
Health department director of food control Andries Pretorius said the draft regulations would bring SA in line with international standards and facilitate food exports.
The new regulations would close loopholes in existing rules, introduced in 1993.
Consumer Goods Council legal and regulatory affairs manager Nick Tselentis said the draft regulations were long outstanding. They would give consumers more information about the nutritional content of foods, though studies showed that few consumers read labels.
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