Ordinance no. 162/2024/1, of 11 June, establishes new rules on the adoption of simplified nutritional labelling systems.
Framework
The Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary (DGAV) is the central office of the direct agencies of the State, which is responsible for drawing up national rules in the food sector, particularly as regards the marketing, manufacturing and labelling processes for foodstuffs. It is also the national authority responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules on providing food information to consumers, as well as with the rules on nutrition labelling systems for the purposes of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Regulation No 1169/2011).
Background: concerns regarding the provision of food informationto consumers
Regulation 1169/2011 regulates in detail the information that the labelling of foodstuffs must contain and how it is presented. As for the information that food business operators voluntarily wish to add, the regulation is naturally more limited, but they must ensure that consumers are not provided with erroneous, ambiguous or confusing information.
In this context, through Order 3637/2024 of 4 April by the Secretary of State for Health Promotion, the so-called Nutri-Score was considered to be "the simplified nutrition labelling system best suited for adoption in Portugal", determining its adoption as a public health measure to promote healthy eating. The adhesion of economic operators to this system has, nevertheless, remained optional.
It should be noted that Nutri-Score, also known as the "nutritional traffic light", is a European labelling system, divided into five colours (with the letters "A" to "E") through which food is nutritionally classified using a symbol on the front of the packaging of food products.
Ordinance 162/2024/1: new rules on the adoption of simplifiednutrition labelling systems
As set out in the preamble to Ordinance 162/2024/1 of 11 June, the DGAV had been expressing reservations about the legislative options implemented in some Member States, on the one hand, due to the lack of consensus as to their framework and, on the other, it considers that some of the solutions adopted might prove to be discriminatory. In particular, the DGAV considers that the Nutri-Score system, which is based on algorithms, may lead to confusing ratings for Portuguese consumers.
In order to address the DGAV's reservations about the Nutri-Score system, Ordinance 162/2024/1 of 11 June (which entered into force and began to take effect on 12 June) was designed:
- To affirm the optional and voluntary use by economic operators of any simplified nutrition labelling system (as was already the case with Nutri-Score); and
- To determine the obligation for any simplified nutrition labelling system to "bear in mind models suitable for Portuguese food products", to be defined by the DGAV.
The Ministry of Agriculture's press release, published in relation to this ordinance, makes it clear that its aim is, on the one hand, to restore legality to the labelling of foodstuffs (since it is understood that the previous Order 3637/2024 was adopted by a transitional government and without the DGAV's knowledge) and, on the other hand, to abandon the institutionalisation of Nutri-Score, as it allegedly allows comparisons considered unreliable (for example, to consider a Portuguese olive oil with the "C" classification as healthy – or unhealthy – as a packet of light crisps,or a frozen pizza or lasagna).
We still await the definition by the DGAV of the nutritional labelling models referred to in Ordinance 162/2024/1 of 11 June to ascertain the changes to which companies that have already signed up to Nutri-Score will be subject.
