The Ministry of Health granted a six-month period to remove all product labeling registrations with non-compliant front labeling.

The Costa Rican Ministry of Health issued on June 22 the circular MS-DRPIS-UR-1588-2023 by which it orders not to include on the labeling of products stamps to warn the public about "high/excess of" for calories, fat, sugars, sodium, among others.

The enforcement of this guideline is for applicants of registration procedures, renewal, and post-registration changes. That is, if the packaging of food products has seals or images that warn about high fat, saturated fat, sodium, or sugar content in addition to the original label, they must submit the new label with which the product will be marketed in Costa Rica to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health’s authorities indicate that both the importer and the distributor must hide the warning seals or images from the original label. It is their responsibility to cover the information, considering that the label information should not generate confusion to the consumer.

The authorities' rationale for this circular is that "the current national and Central American regulations do not establish specific parameters to determine when a food has "high" or "excess" of any important nutrient, such as calories, fat, sugars or sodium, and the labeling information should not generate confusion to the consumer in any case".

This change of criteria by the authorities denotes costs for the companies since they are forced to change the labels of their products in order to be in compliance before the authority.

Finally, it is important to mention that, once this circular is published, it is mandatory for local and imported products to comply with the new regulations to avoid sanitary orders for non-compliance. 

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