We are absolutely delighted to have been invited to become a member of the St Kitts and Nevis Bureau of Standards Technical Committee for Labelling.

The St Kitts and Nevis Bureau of Standards has the responsibility of protecting the environment, health and safety of consumers. They focus on preparing, promoting and adopting standards on a national, regional and international basis with respect to the structures, commodities, materials, articles and other products and services offered to the public commercially. Through their work they promote standardization and quality assurance in industry and commerce.

One of the areas that the Bureau focuses on is ensuring the proper labelling of pre-packaged food items. Currently, the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality is updating the regional standard for the labelling of pre-packaged foods. The updated standard includes the introduction of front-of-pack labelling .

Front-of-pack (FOP) labels are just one of several strategies being used worldwide to tackle obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This type of labelling aims to provide the public with a quick way to assess the health of the foods they purchase and consume, making it easier to identify which foods are high in salt, saturated fat and sugar. It is also hoped that manufacturers will take notice of the labelling of their products and be encouraged to reformulate their products and reduce the amount of salt, sugar and saturated fat in them.

As part of our role in the SKNBS Technical Committee for Labelling we will be providing input on the need for FOP labels as a useful tool for the public to make healthier choices and for the government to tackle NCDs, a significant challenge in St Kitts and Nevis causing 83% of the islands’ deaths.

Last month we attended our first meeting of this committee and were delighted to have had the opportunity to have a productive discussion on FOP labels.

We’d like to thank the committee for inviting us to be a member of this group and are very much looking forward to making a positive contribution going forward.

The World Cancer Research Fund recently published a very informative and useful report on the lessons learnt globally from implementing front-of-pack (FOP) labels.

This report is the second report in their Building Momentum series and aims to provide policymakers with evidence-based advice on the design and implementation of FOP labelling.

FOP nutrition labelling is just one of several strategies being used worldwide to tackle obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This type of labelling aims to provide the public with a quick way to assess the health of the foods they purchase and consume, making it easier to identify which foods are high in salt, saturated fat and sugar. It is also hoped that manufacturers will take notice of the labelling of their products and be encouraged to reformulate their products and reduce the amount of salt, sugar and saturated fat in them.

Currently many countries are exploring the introduction of FOP labels so the WCRF’s report is very timely. It covers the following areas:

• Why FOP labels are important in tackling NCDs
• A summary of the research on the effectiveness of FOP labels
• The history of FOP labels and current status of FOP labels globally
• The different types of front-of-pack labels
• Developing a clear strategy for FOP labels that considers the following
  • The local context
  • Ensuring strategies are based on evidence
  • Having clear aims and objectives
  •  Carefully design of labels
  •  Good stakeholder engagement
  • Monitoring and evaluation are included at the early planning stage-
• Defending FOP labelling

The report includes case studies from countries who have already implemented front-of-pack labelling providing very useful real-word examples of the challenges involved in introducing FOP labelling and how to overcome them.

With the Caribbean currently exploring the introduction of FOP labelling we believe this report is a must-read for policymakers throughout the region.

The report can be downloaded below and for more information on the WCRF please visit their website here