Alegações nutricionais e de saúde, técnicas de marketing e perfil de nutrientes em alimentos industrializados no Brasil

Abstract

The present study aimed to (i) map the packaged food market in Brazil by examining the presence of nutrition and health claims and marketing techniques in products from different levels of industrial food processing and categories; (ii) to determine the nutritional quality by four nutrient profile models and then, evaluate if the use of nutrition and health claims and marketing techniques on labels are adequate, considering the different food categories and levels of industrial food processing; and (iii) to evaluate the need to food reformulation in Brazil. For this, a survey was conducted on the labels of pre-packed foods and non-alcoholic beverages marketed in Brazil. Results shown the use of nutrition and health claims on packaged foods in Brazil is widespread and varied across different food categories. Marketing techniques were also highly occurring, and techniques emphasizing general health, well-being or naturalness was the most frequent type of technique used. Overall, products carrying nutrition and health claim and/or marketing techniques had lower content of fat and higher content of fiber. However, the high prevalence of these strategies in ultra-processed foods are alarming. The presence of health claims and marketing techniques was not found to be an effective modifier of the three price measures. However, processed and ultra-processed foods were more expensive than unprocessed foods when considering price per energy and price per 100 g or mL. The majority of packaged foods evaluated did not pass the nutrition standards proposed by the nutrient profile systems, and ultra-processed food was the least healthy. The pass rates obtained for products carrying nutrition and/or health claims have evidenced that not always the presence of these claims are indicative of better nutritional quality. This also applied for products with marketing techniques, since the pass rates were low among the four models. Price measures between products with healthier nutrient profile did not differ from those less healthy, which indicates the possibility to improve diet quality with comparable but healthier products without also increasing the cost of the diet. These findings highlight a clear need for improvement of the supermarket packaged food environment, where the focus should be on displaying a smaller number of less healthy ultra-processed foods and healthier products, and increase efforts to reformulate products to make them healthier.