Cape Town — The food industry has been given a temporary stay of execution on government plans to tighten controls on advertising to children and the labelling of junk food, it emerged yesterday.

The Department of Health published draft regulations for labelling and advertising food in July 2007 to crack down on misleading information provided to consumers.

The regulations included a ban on advertising junk food to children under the age of 16, prohibited making health claims for a list of nonessential foods, and said food manufacturers and importers must provide scientifically valid information on their labels.

The department has now decided to split implementation of the regulations into two stages.

From March next year, food manufacturers and importers must comply with detailed guidelines that strive to do away with vague unscientific labels.

Regulations gazetted on March 1 introduce strict definitions to govern nutrient claims, such as "low fat" or "high fibre", and spell out the details of how the industry should describe the contents of products.

The regulations say food labels must include a sell-by date, a use-by date, and the batch number and address of the manufacturer. Manufacturers and importers will have to provide consumers with details of ingredients, and declare common allergens such as peanuts.

But regulations governing the much more controversial issue of advertising food and drink to children will be drawn up only after a World Health Organisation meeting in May, according to the department's director for food control, Andries Pretorius.

The department had also held back on the regulations governing "nonessential" or junk food, as it had yet to develop a "nutrient profile model" suitable for the South African population, said Pretorius.

The draft regulations included a list of "nonessential" foodstuffs, and said no claims could be made about their health or other benefits.

At the time the department said it wanted to curb information that deceived consumers.

The list included artificially sweetened soft drinks, fruit nectars, soft drinks with the words "energy", "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.

Pretorius said officials had since realised the list was not based on sound science, and needed a model to evaluate specific categories of food. The department was planning to commission a study to devise this "nutrient profile model", he said.

The department has also decided to do more work on the regulations for health claims on foodstuffs.

Failure to comply with the regulations that have already been gazetted by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi will incur penalties set out in the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act. These include imprisonment or fines that could run to "hundreds of thousands of rands", Pretorius said.

The Consumer Goods Council said the regulations would help consumers make informed choices.