The Food and Drug General Authority in Saudi Arabia has adopted three technical regulations, with the aim of promoting public health and encouraging healthy nutritional behaviors, in order to achieve the targets of the health sector transformation program, one of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 programs. The regulations include disclosing caffeine content in drinks, and the medal of high -content meals in salt, in addition to the physical activity in the lists of restaurants and cafes that provide food for the consumer outside the home.
This comes within the efforts of the Preventive Authority aimed at raising the average life expectancy and reducing the rates of chronic diseases. It is scheduled to enter into force on the first of July 2025.
According to the list of disclosure of caffeine content; The body obliges restaurants and cafes that offer drinks that contain caffeine to clarify its quantity in the menus, whether paper or electronic, so that the ratio is determined by milligrams per 100 ml or per cup, in addition to including an explanatory phrase stating that the maximum consumption of an adult individual is 400 milligrams per day.
The Authority also provided “Electronic Caffeine Calculator” through its website, allowing restaurants and cafes to calculate the amount of caffeine, in addition to enabling consumers to know the amount of caffeine in their drinks with ease through the link. It is equivalent to 2000 milligrams of sodium, in all menus, whether paper or electronic, in addition to electronic dining platforms. This step aims to alert consumers around high salt foods, which contributes to reducing excessive consumption of sodium and preventing health problems associated with it.
With regard to the regulations of the physical activity, restaurants, cafes and electronic dining platforms will require to clarify the time period needed to burn calories resulting from the meal consumption, by adding an explanatory icon that shows the type of sports activity needed to burn calories for each food item, while determining the period of time required to burn the time units (in minutes or hours).
The authority emphasized that these preventive legislation comes as an extension of the healthy food strategy that it launched in 2018, which aims to improve public health, provide suitable nutritional options for consumers, and enable them to adopt positive nutritional behaviors that enhance their food awareness, through cooperation with service providers in the restaurant and cafes sector to ensure the application of these legislations efficiently.
