Health Canada’s new front-of-package nutrition symbol is a regulation set to take full effect on the first day of next year. The little informative box will be required on prepackaged food products that meet or exceed specific thresholds for saturated fat, sugars, or sodium. It is a standardized black-and-white design featuring a magnifying glass and a clear warning of the nutrient in excess, whether that’s saturated fat, sugar, sodium, or all three.
The label is going to be mandatory unless the product qualifies for one of the few exemptions, like milk sold in refillable glass containers, extremely small packaged goods, and mostly raw foods such as plain yogurt and cheese, beef, chicken, honey, butter, and straight sugar. Many types of supplements will fall under the front-of-package requirements, although they’ll only need to display the symbol if they exceed one or more of the levels.
- ≥15% daily value of saturated fat (≥2g)
- ≥15% daily value of sugars (≥15g)
- ≥15% daily value of sodium (≥360mg)
While many supplements do have saturated fat, sugars, and sodium, you won’t likely see Health Canada’s new front-of-package symbol filling out your local health and nutrition store. Some protein powders may hit that 2g of saturated fat but it’ll mostly be protein bars, energy drinks, and the majority of mass gainers, as the saturated fat, sugar, and sodium marks are a walk in the park for most players in that high-calorie category.
The location of the front-of-package frame will depends on the layout of the label but generally must be in the upper half or right side, but keep in mind, if something doesn’t breach any of the three levels, it won’t require it at all. Again, you can look forward to all of this rolling in over the coming months in preparation for that January 1st deadline, and you can find out more about it all in the Health Canada section of canada.ca.
