Front of Pack Warning Labels
Getting a plain warning onto the front of every ultra processed pack sold in Uganda, so a shopper knows what is inside before it reaches the pot.
Getting a plain warning onto the front of every ultra processed pack sold in Uganda, so a shopper knows what is inside before it reaches the pot.
A gazetted regulation requiring a plain warning on the front of every pre packaged product that exceeds the national nutrient thresholds.
Market survey of packaged products on Ugandan shelves, with laboratory analysis of sugar, salt and fat content against WHO thresholds.
Consumer groups, health professionals, academics and faith based organisations brought under one coordinated ask.
A drafted instrument submitted to the Ministry of Health, with legal opinion on the enabling powers.
The Ministry of Health signed Uganda's National Nutrient Profile Model, setting the thresholds a label will be based on. This is the step everything else was waiting for.
We are herePublication in the Gazette, after which the labelling requirement becomes enforceable and a transition window opens for manufacturers.
Uganda has no rule requiring a manufacturer to tell you, on the front of the pack, that a product is high in sugar, salt or saturated fat. The information exists. It sits on the back, in a table, in a font size that assumes good light and good eyesight.
A front of pack warning label changes that. Chile introduced them in 2016 and purchases of labelled products fell sharply within eighteen months. The design is deliberately plain, because plain is what works.
CEFROHT convenes the Uganda National CSO Coalition on Front of Pack Warning Labels. Our part is the legal and evidence work: what the regulation has to say to survive challenge, which body has the power to issue it, and what the Nutrient Profile Model has to contain.
Getting a plain warning onto the front of every ultra processed pack sold in Uganda, so a shopper knows what is inside before it reaches the pot.
The first law of its kind in East Africa. It would protect indigenous seed, curb agrochemicals and make agroecology the region's default rather than its exception.
What moved, what stalled, and what you can do about it. Written for people who care about food justice but don't have time to read a bill.