Nutrition and health-related information disclosure on pre-packaged food products from local retail shops in Accra

The prevalence of obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are rapidly increasing in Africa. Consumption of pre-packaged foods is one of the main drivers of these NCDs. Pre-packaged foods tend to contain high levels of energy, fat, sugar, and salt, which are known risk factors for NCDs. Food labels can guide consumers to make informed healthy food choices. Therefore, it is important to analyze how health-related information is communicated on food labels. In Ghana, there is paucity of evidence on what health-related information is available to consumers of pre-packaged foods. This study describes health-related information on labelled pre-packaged foods sold in local retail shops in Accra. A cross-sectional survey and quantitative content analysis of food label information were employed in this study. Pre-packaged food labels photograph data were sourced from shops and content analyzed to describe their health-related information. Nutrition and health-related information were classified using the International Network for Food and Obesity/Non-Communicable Diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) system. Three hundred and fifty-one (N=351) pre-packaged foods and non-alcoholic beverages were sampled, out of which 2.3% products were unlabelled. Out of 343 labelled products, 92% disclosed ingredient list information and 68.8% had nutrition declaration. Between the two nutrition labelling formats: Back-of-Pack (BOP) and Front of Pack (FOP), BOP was the dominant (87.3%) format. Various types of FOPs were identified however, Guidelines Daily Allowance (GDA) was the most common format. The study found that 18% of labelled pre-packaged foods carried nutrition claim and about 7% had a health claim. Most of the claims were written and the others were a combination of words, numbers, and pictures/symbols. This study has shown a high disclosure of health-related label information on pre-packaged food but information presentations on labels were not consistent. The insight gained from this study shows that the presentation of health-related label information does not meet the current recommendations of Codex and the benchmarks set out by INFORMAS in promoting a healthy food environment.