Nutrition Labelling and Marketing in Canada

Food package labels contain multiple forms of nutrition information that consumers encounter when making food choices, including ingredient lists, Nutrition Facts tables, nutrient content claims, health claims, front-of-package symbols, product images, and other forms of marketing.

Research from the L’Abbé Lab examines how nutrition labelling and marketing policies can support healthier food choices, improve transparency in the food supply, and protect consumers, particularly children, from misleading or unhealthy food marketing.

____________________________________________

Front of Package Nutrition Labelling

Figure 1

Front-of-package nutrition labelling provides simplified nutrition information on the front of food packages to help consumers quickly identify products that are high in nutrients of public health concern. In Canada, as of January 1, 2026, a mandatory front-of-package nutrition symbol is required on most prepackaged foods that meet or exceed set levels for saturated fat, sugars, or sodium.

The L’Abbé Lab has conducted extensive research on front-of-package labelling in Canada, from earlier studies of voluntary front-of-package systems and consumer understanding of labelling formats to more recent evaluations of Canada’s mandatory “high in” nutrition symbol. Recent work has examined whether Canada’s front-of-package labelling regulations are likely to support healthy eating among Canadians, compared the 2018 proposed and 2022 final regulations, modelled the potential dietary and health impacts of mandatory front-of-package labels in Canada and the United States, examined the role of industry lobbying in the development of Canadian front-of-package labelling policy, and explored how similar labelling approaches could be applied in restaurant menu labelling contexts.

In a recent study led by our lab, we estimated the number of avoidable ischemic heart disease and stroke incidence cases, as well as associated healthcare cost and quality-adjusted life year savings, that could result from mandatory “high in” front-of-package labelling. [Click here for an infographic of the study.]

Selected Publications:

____________________________________________

Children’s Marketing

shutterstock_269942624_rev

The L’Abbé Lab conducts research to inform policies that restrict unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children. Food marketing remains a major public health concern because it influences children’s food preferences, purchase requests, consumption patterns, and dietary quality.

Our research has examined child-appealing marketing on packaged foods, food company websites, television, digital media, and other platforms. This work has shown that child-appealing marketing is common in Canada and that products marketed to children are often less healthy than products marketed to adults.

Recent L’Abbé Lab studies have examined child-appealing packaged foods in Canada, children’s exposure to unhealthy food and beverage advertising, advertising expenditures on child-targeted products, and the healthfulness of major food brands under Health Canada’s proposed nutrient profile model for restrictions on food marketing to children. Newer work has also identified policy gaps between child-appealing marketing and front-of-package labelling, showing that many child-appealing packaged foods in Canada would display a “high in” front-of-package nutrition symbol. The lab is also using artificial intelligence and computer vision to detect and monitor unhealthy child-directed food and beverage marketing at scale.

Selected Publications:

____________________________________________

Nutrient Content and Health Claims

fat claims

Nutrient content claims describe the amount of a nutrient in a product, including whether it is present, absent, low, reduced, or present at a higher level (e.g., “low in sodium,” “reduced in sugar,” “source of fibre,” “high in protein,” or “trans fat free”). These claims are regulated in Canada and can help consumers identify products with more or less of a particular nutrient.

However, nutrient content claims are generally regulated on a nutrient-specific basis and may not reflect the overall nutritional quality of a food. Earlier research from the L’Abbé Lab found that Canadian prepackaged foods and beverages with sugar claims often had lower sugar, calories, and sodium than comparable products without sugar claims, but these products were not always consistent with broader indicators of healthfulness. This highlights the importance of interpreting nutrient content claims in the context of the overall nutritional profile of a product.

Health claims, including disease risk reduction claims, link a nutrient or food component to a health effect or reduced risk of a diet-related disease or condition. In Canada, these claims are regulated and must meet specific wording and compositional criteria.

Selected Publication:

Healthfulness and nutritional composition of Canadian prepackaged foods with and without sugar claims
Bernstein JT, Franco-Arellano B, Schermel A, Labonté M-È, L’Abbé MR. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 2017.