Bottles of Coca-Cola, packets of Oreo cookies and boxes of Kellogg’s chocolate-flavored cereal were among more than 10,000 product units removed from supermarket shelves in Mexico City this week because they didn’t meet labeling requirements.
Consumer protection agency Profeco and health regulator Cofepris carried out a joint operation that resulted in the removal of 10,075 Mexican-made and imported product units of over 80 different brands.
The authorities said in a joint statement that Profeco officials visited Walmart, La Comer and Chedraui supermarkets in the capital while Cofepris officials inspected products at Soriana and Chedraui stores.
Among the other products removed were Chips Ahoy! cookies, Doritos corn chips, Soriana’s maple-flavored syrup, JELL-O jelly crystals, Lorusso organic strawberry jam, Filippo Berrio pesto sauce and Pepsi cherry-flavored soda.
The products were seized due to “irregularities” on their labels, Profeco and Cofepris said.
Among the irregularities were the absence of warnings about excess calories or sugar and the nonappearance of warnings about the presence of allergens, caffeine and sweeteners.
The authorities noted that Mexican and foreign companies have a legal obligation to comply with food and beverage labeling laws. “The nutritional warning stamps must be placed on the front of the packaging,” they added.
“Placing stamps in a side or rear position may have the purpose of hiding unhealthy content or deceiving consumers about the nutritional properties of articles,” Profeco and Cofepris said.
A list of all the products seized by the two authorities is available here. They didn’t say whether they intended to carry out additional labeling checks in other parts of the country.
Profeco announced in October that 12 different instant soup products had been withdrawn because the information on their packaging was incorrect or misleading, while several brands of panela cheese were ordered off the market in December due to labeling errors.
Mexico News Daily
