Manufacturers and importers trading in food products entering the Kenyan market will soon have to dig deeper into their pockets to customise their products for the Kenyan market.
This is after it emerged that the manufacturers of packaged food and drink products, as well as importers of such foods, will soon be required to publish and display all nutritional and product information on their items under new government regulations.
In response to concerns regarding the impact of their product formulation on public health, both domestic and foreign companies will be required to include a health warning label on all of their products, according to Reuters.
Kenya released its nutrient profile model in June and committed to using it to develop front-of-package labels.
Among the regulations the government hinted at on June 9 are plans to intensify the campaign to curb advertising and consumption of unhealthy foods, particularly among children.
The decision, according to the Ministry of Health, is part of sweeping reforms to tackle the worrying rise in diet-related Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) across the country.
Earlier, a report by the non-profit Access to Nutrition Initiative, released last year, found that under those rules, 90 per cent of products sold by both international companies and local firms dealing in food, among them snacks and milk, contained either too much salt, sugar, or saturated fat.
According to the report, around two-thirds of the products would also be deemed "unhealthy" based on models used internationally, like Nutri-Score, which, unlike the Kenyan model, also takes into account positive nutrients.
Additionally, the nonprofit found last year that products sold by the world’s biggest food and drink companies in poorer countries were, on average, less healthy than those sold in richer countries.
A separate study published by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute found that lax laws on food labelling in Kenya could be keeping individuals with chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity sick.
Meanwhile, similar policies have been adopted in other countries with relative success, with the most notable example being in Singapore, where ads for unhealthy drinks with high sugar content were banned in 2019.
In addition to the ban, Singapore's government also required sugary drinks to display a colour-coded, front-of-pack nutrition label that detailed the sugar content in the drink.
