The company, which is the main distributor of sugary drinks in Mexico, filed an injunction against the new food and beverage labeling.
Mexico City, August 27 (However) .– Coca-Cola Femsa promoted an amparo against new labeling for ultra-processed food and beverages arguing that the reform could affect its business and operations in Mexico.
“The Company has filed an amparo lawsuit against this reform, which is pending resolution. The company cannot assure that this reform will not have an adverse effect on its business and on the results of its operations in Mexico, ”he informed the Mexican Stock Exchange.
The amparo lawsuit promoted by the company goes against the reform to the Official Mexican Standard 051 (NOM-051), which requires companies to specify in black octagons if their products are harmful to health, for example, from excess calories or sugar.
The company, as well as other companies, have a deadline of November 30 of this year to comply with the guidelines established by NOM-051 and to place the warnings on their products.
Coca-Cola Femsa also reported that it promoted another protection against the Law for the Prevention and Comprehensive Management of Solid Waste, which since 2019 prohibits the use of single-use PET resin bottles for bottles in Oaxaca.
The main distributor of sugary drinks in Mexico is the Mexican Economic Development Company (Femsa). According to company data and published last June by Pie de Página, in the country they have a market that reaches more than 75 million people, among their main products are Coca Cola, juices Del Valle, Sprite, Fresca, Fanta, Vitamin Water, Santa Clara dairy, Heineken and Powerade. But the Monterrey company is not only the world’s largest bottler of the Coca Cola brand. It also owns the Oxxo brand, with more than 19 thousand 598 stores in Mexico and other South American countries, in addition to the Oxxo Gas gas stations.
The company opposes the new labeling with which the products will include labels with warnings such as: “excess calories” and “excess sodium”, the system that was in force in Mexico –the one we see at the bottom of packages– It was the Daily Diet Guidelines (GDA), which consists of showing the percentages of total sugars, saturated fat, other fats, sodium and calories in a serving of the product with respect to the recommended amounts in a diet of 2,000 kilocalories.
In July of this year Alejandro Calvillo, from the organization El Poder del Consumidor, reported in an interview with SinEmbargo.
about the junk food companies’ attack on López-Gatell for labeling approval. He said that the corporations that are part of ConMéxico, such as Coca-Cola FEMSA, Nestlé, Kellog’s and Bimbo, lost the support they had from the Government and that is why they undertake campaigns against the official, who has supported the amendment to the General Health Law , approved in January and which in October will make a new front labeling mandatory for products that contain high levels of sugars, sodium, saturated fat and calories.
“Coca-Cola FEMSA is the one that has undertaken these campaigns the most,” he stated. “Nestlé operates under water, but several former officials and former health secretaries have been linked to the company through the Mexican Foundation for Health (Funsalud), which has had a very strong influence on the country’s health policies.”
Calvillo accused the Mexican Council of the Consumer Products Industry, AC (ConMéxico) “of being the main actor in lobbying and blocking policies against obesity in the country.”
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