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Lack of nutrient declarations and low nutritional quality of pre-packaged foods sold in Guatemalan supermarkets

Abstract Objective: To assess the presence of nutrition declarations and nutritional quality in pre-packaged food products sold in Guatemala. Design: We photographed nutrition labels of pre-packaged foods. We extracted information about declaration of energy, total/saturated/trans-fats, total/added sugars and Na content (critical nutrients). We classified all products according to their degree of processing (NOVA classification) and nutritional quality (PAHO and WHO-Europe nutrient profile models). Setting: Pre-packaged foods for sale in seven supermarkets in Guatemala City. Participants: This study did not involve human subjects. Results: We assessed 3459 pre-packaged foods, including 80 % ultra-processed, 7 % processed and 13 % unprocessed/minimally processed foods or culinary ingredients. Nutritional information was available in 3021 products (87·3 %). Energy content was declared in 87·0 %; total fats in 86·1 %; saturated fats in 81·5 %; trans-fats in 48·9 %; total sugars in 70·3 %; added sugars in 0·5 % and Na/salt in 85·5 % of products. Insufficient nutrient information made impossible to assess nutritional quality in 36·6 and 17·1 % of products with the PAHO and WHO-Europe models, respectively. Using PAHO and WHO nutrient profiles, we found that 66·2 and 50 % of food products did not meet the model’s nutritional criteria. Conclusions: A high proportion of pre-packaged foods with nutritional information available in Guatemalan supermarkets do not meet the nutritional criteria recommended by WHO and PAHO. Furthermore, a high proportion of products did not declare critical nutrients and many did not even provide any nutritional information. National regulations should consider making critical nutrient declarations (including trans-fats and sugars) mandatory for all products.