Nutrition labelling and food composition of pre-packaged foods in China

Abstract

Background The last decade has seen rapid changes to Chinese packaged foods which are causing serious adverse health outcomes. There is an urgent need for data to inform policy responses and monitor their implementation if diet-related diseases are to be prevented. Method A systematic review of existing studies was done and new data were collected from the labels of pre-packaged foods for sale in Beijing in 2013. The prevalence of nutrition labelling and the completeness of nutrient declarations was determined before and after the introduction of mandatory nutrition labelling in January 2013. Results There were data describing 22,636 foods prior to 2013 and 11,489 foods after 2013. The prevalence of nutrition labelling was much higher (87% vs. 44%) after the mandatory regulation was implemented in 2013. Reporting of energy, protein, fat, carbohydrate and sodium which are required by the regulation all improved. Nutrients not required by the regulation like saturated fat, trans fat and sugar were infrequently reported. Conclusion Mandatory nutrition labelling proved highly effective in China and is recommended to other countries. Ongoing collection of data will allow monitoring of changes in the packaged food supply. The FoodSwitch smartphone application will shortly be launched in China to facilitate this.