Hoard's Dairyman:
Product warning labels: a global fight for dairy
June 15, 2026
By Tony Rice, Senior Director, Trade Policy, and Miquela Hanselman, MPH, Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs
Walk down a grocery aisle in some countries and you might see large black stop signs or ominous-looking warning symbols on food packages. These are called front-of-package labels (FOPL), and they’re a simplistic way to flag products that contain high levels of added sugar, sodium, or saturated fats. While the intent here is to spur healthier eating, in practice these labels often result in treating a can of diet soda as a health product while covering a carton of whole or chocolate milk in caution labels.
When a public health policy discourages consumption of nutritious foods, it’s clearly not working the way it should. That’s a serious problem for consumers and dairy farmers everywhere. It impacts the size of the total dairy demand pie in these markets, putting U.S. export opportunities at risk in the process.
That’s why the National Milk Producers Federation and the U.S. Dairy Export Council are working hard to make sure dairy isn’t unfairly stamped with labels that discourage consumption and ignore dairy’s well-established nutritional benefits.
The fight in Latin America
Three of the most active regulatory battlegrounds right now are in Latin America.
In Chile, a market worth $100 million in U.S. dairy exports last year, a FOPL requirement was rolled out in 2019. As part of that requirement, milk, yogurt, and cheese that exceed the government’s thresholds for calories, saturated fats, sugars, and sodium must include a prominent warning label. NMPF and USDEC have been partnering with the Chilean Federation of Milk Producers to pursue dairy-specific exemptions and align this labeling scheme with the Chilean government’s dietary guidelines, which recognize dairy’s health benefits.
In Colombia, a market worth $183 million in U.S. dairy exports last year, the stakes are equally high. Regulators there are weighing a draft labeling proposal that threatens to label most dairy products as “ultra-processed” simply because production of these nutritious products requires certain processing steps or functional additives. NMPF and USDEC submitted formal comments to Colombia last month, and are working with allied Colombian dairy partners to advocate for exempting nutrient-dense dairy foods from any FOPL requirements.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, we’ve spent the past six years working hand in hand with dairy partners in that $2.6 billion dairy export market to steer Mexico’s FOPL regulation in a more workable direction, and stave off a misguided final stage that could have barred the use of many dairy products in publicly-funded facilities like schools and hospitals.
Educating decision-makers
Policy change doesn’t happen overnight, and it often depends on whether the people making decisions truly understand the science. That’s why USDEC, with the support of the National Dairy Council and NMPF, organized the NutriLact Congress 2026, a dairy nutrition congress held this past February in Lima, Peru, for more than 300 scientists, health officials, policymakers, and other attendees from 17 countries across Latin America. The event highlighted to policymakers, and the health practitioner organizations they work with, the unique ability of dairy products to address nutrient shortfalls across every stage of life, from pregnancy and early childhood through healthy aging.
The bottom line for dairy farmers
A warning label on cheese or milk overseas might seem like a distant problem, but it has real consequences for demand, exports, and the long-term reputation of dairy. NMPF and USDEC are on the front lines working to make sure that American dairy products don’t get misrepresented by a black stop sign. Through partnerships with like-minded organizations in the region and educational initiatives like NutriLact, the industry is building the relationships it needs to win this fight over the long haul.
This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on June 15, 2026.
