Governments are seeking to regulate food environments to promote health by restricting sales and marketing of processed foods high in fat, sugar and sodium. We aimed to evaluate whether the legal instruments in Member States of the Western Pacific Region (WPR) mandate the declaration of nutrient composition for nutrients of concern in relation to Codex Alimentarius and Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) prevention.

We undertook content analysis of legal instruments governing food quality and safety, documenting mandates for nutrient declarations in the WPR. Legal instruments were purposefully sourced through a systematic search of regional legal databases and Google. We performed qualitative and quantitative analysis, using an adapted version of Reeve and Magnusson’s Framework for Analyzing and Improving the Performance of Regulatory Instruments.

Legal instruments governing food quality and safety in 28 Member States of the WPR.

There was substantial variation in the nutrient declaration mandates within legal instruments, with only 3 out of 28 countries mandated nutrient declarations in full alignment with Codex recommendations (energy, protein, available carbohydrate, fat, saturated fat, sodium and total sugars). Just 4 countries mandated the display of sodium, sugar, saturated fat and trans-fats, in line with NCD prevention recommendations. Sodium labelling was mandated in 10 countries, sugar in 7, and saturated fat in 6.

There is scope for countries to strengthen legal instruments for nutrient declarations to better support diet-related NCD prevention efforts. Regional support agencies can play a key role in promoting greater policy coherence and alignment with international best practice.