Cummins pushing for country to make decision on front of package warning labels by year-end

By Marlon Madden

With a final decision yet to be made at the level of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on the much-touted octagonal front-of-package warning labels (FOPWL), Minister of Energy and Business Development Senator Lisa Cummins has made it clear that Barbados will be leading the way with a decision by the end of this year.

She said she will be pushing for a “hybrid” approach to the nutritional warning label system.

At the same time, Cummins gave the assurance that the move will not be done to the detriment of local manufacturers. She said the approach will also give consideration to consumers, visitors to the island, international trade practices, and what is being done in countries from which Barbados imports goods.

“Let me be clear: The Government of Barbados is committed to having front-of-package labelling. The Government of Barbados is committed to ensuring Barbadian consumers, Barbadian citizens, people who are part of our expanded market and visiting our nation are able to see what they are consuming and are making responsible choices,” she declared on Wednesday at the opening of the Barbados Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition (BCOP Coalition) workshop on the Pathway to Octagonal front-of-package Warning Labels, at the Accra Beach Resort.

“We have to be in a position where by the end of the year, I am hoping, together with the partners in this room, to develop a concise approach for Barbados that speaks to front-of-package labelling, that makes determination on how we can have a hybrid type approach, perhaps.

“So people are able to both have the front-of-package labelling for Barbados in terms of the octagonal labelling. We want to be able to see that, but how then do we allow for the expanded market to be able to recognise differences between what we are doing? How then do we support local businesses to make that transition? What does the transition time to front-of-package labelling look like?” Cummins said.

Currently, an octagonal FOPWL is being proposed for Barbados and the rest of CARICOM, that would give an indication that a pre-packaged food item is “high-in” sugar, sodium or fat.

CARICOM member states will have until the end of this year to respond to resubmitted documents on the related standards that have just been reviewed by the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ).

They will also be required to vote again on the measure, after the vote in 2021 fell short with six countries voting for, three against and six abstaining. A 75 per cent support is needed for it to be approved across CARICOM.

Singling out Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, two of the region’s largest manufacturers of pre-packaged goods, Cummins said they had legitimate concerns relating to manufacturing processes, trade rules and warning label standards regarding goods entering the region, among others.

However, she insisted that “Barbados, as we have done on renewable energy, the school nutrition policy, climate advocacy, education, universal access to health care, and on every other thing, must not be afraid to lead, not just locally but regionally, to find a solution to what the region needs to be able to do in terms of front-of-package labelling”.

“The time has come for the region – its national standard institutions, its business community and it’s health officials collaboratively – to take a leadership role in framing an approach and hopefully, no later than by the end of the year, that allows the myriad balancing concerns that have been placed on the table [to be addressed].

“Where it is legitimate, let us put it on the table. Where it is not, let us discard it and set it aside, but let us have that leadership role being played by Barbados. And I am committed, my ministry is committed and my team is committed to working along with you to find that common ground, and that common ground requires us to hear each other,” she told participants of the workshop.

Declaring that “we have to find a way, that hybrid way, that allows everyone to come onboard”, Cummins said what needs to be done is already known and it was now a matter of how it should be done.

She gave the assurance that local manufacturers will be given time to make the necessary transition.

“As we implement measures for front-of-package labelling, which we must, as we consider what our major importing partners are doing on their front-of-package labelling, we have to ensure that we do not create conditions that make it difficult for our local manufacturers to compete at the same time,” Cummins said. 

“So we have to ensure there is also a transitional process and that there are supporting mechanisms to help the manufacturing sector to transition to where they need to be.”

marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb