‘I had never seen so many lobbyists’: food industry political practices during the development of a new nutrition front-of-pack labelling system in Colombia

Abstract

Objective: To identify and monitor food industry use of political practices during the adoption of nutrition warning labels (WL) in Colombia. Design: Document analysis of publicly available information triangulated with interviews. Setting: Colombia. Participants: Eighteen key informants from the government (n 2), academia (n 1), civil society (n 12), the media (n 2) and a former food industry employee (n 1). Results: In Colombia, the food industry used experts and groups funded by large transnationals to promote its preferred front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FOPL) and discredit the proposed warning models. The industry criticised the proposed WL, discussing the negative impacts they would have on trade, the excessive costs required to implement them and the fact that consumers were responsible for making the right choices about what to eat. Food industry actors also interacted with the government and former members of large trade associations now in decision-making positions in the public sector. The Codex Alimentarius was also a platform through which the industry got access to decision-making and could influence the FOPL policy. Conclusions: In Colombia, the food industry used a broad range of political strategies that could have negatively influenced the FOPL policy process. Despite this influence, the mandatory use of WL was announced in February 2020. There is an urgent need to condemn such political practices as they still could prevent the implementation of other internationally recommended measures to improve population health in the country and abroad, nutrition WL being only of them.

“The architecture of the state was transformed in favour of the interests of companies”: corporate political activity of the food industry in Colombia

“…Participants in our interviews also identified example of CPA, describing actions or arguments that have been used in the past few years by the food industry in Colombia. The CPA strategies used by the food industry with regards to the discussion on the introduction of a new FOPNL system in Colombia is the subject of a separate publication [32].…”

Extent and nutritional quality of foods and beverages to which children are exposed in Colombian TV food advertising

“…Furthermore, our results support the need to develop a policy in Colombia that will categorise foods based on nutritional quality to guide the identification and reduction of marketing of unhealthy foods. A front-of-package food labelling system is being discussed in Colombia to qualify and identify less healthy foods, with documented lobbying activity by the food industry in opposition to the implementation of this system (40) .…”

Ultra-Processed Profits: The Political Economy of Countering the Global Spread of Ultra-Processed Foods – A Synthesis Review on the Market and Political Practices of Transnational Food Corporations and Strategic Public Health Responses

“…Another common tactic used to disincentivise governments from employing stricter, typically much more effective, public health policies is through the threat of legal action. 79,80 Finally, Big Food influences policy through policy substitution. Whilst this can involve providing amended versions of policies that benefit the corporation or industry, it usually occurs through the introduction of 'self-regulatory' codes of conduct.…”