Cuba establishes new regulation on food safety

Cuba established a new regulation regarding food safety, published today in Decree-Law No. 9 of 2020, in Ordinary Official Gazette No. 76.

The provision defines regulations focused on licenses and sanitary registries for imported and nationally manufactured products, as well as principles to guarantee safe and nutritious food, in a competitive and responsible development of the entities involved.

According to Jorge Félix Medina, secretary of the national committee of the Codex Alimentarius, the country needed a regulation that would summarize all the existing resolutions in a document of higher legal hierarchy, to enforce the right of citizens to a healthy diet.

Likewise, this Decree-Law reinforces, even from the international framework, the inspection functions of the regulatory authorities and protects the island's international trade.

In an interview with the local newspaper Granma, the also senior specialist in Standardization of the National Standardization Office said that the legal body involves all actors in the food chain, from production, packaging, transportation, storage and marketing, to the consumer .

Both the Decree-Law, as its regulations and complementary legislation, are mandatory for the business system, budgeted entities and the non-state sector.

The provision establishes that only those foods that comply with the rules and regulations of health protection may be produced, imported, exported or marketed in Cuba.

In addition, quality and safety must be guaranteed at each stage of the process, as well as the use of practices that do not harm the environment and avoid adulteration or contamination.

The document defines the obligations of each of the parties, the situations of alerts, health emergencies and food fraud, and the corresponding action in each individual.