Saudi Arabia along with other GCC countries including UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain have high levels of obesity, and this has been a known issue for numerous years. Some of these countries have even implemented systems including sin tax on cigarettes and soft drinks.
Saudi Arabia is making a new push to help reduce this image with the new law that will make it mandatory to display the caloric count and ingredients of meals on menus. This change may not have as much of an impact as a sin tax, since people may not take much heed of the inclusion due to there being no monetary incentive to bear it in mind. Though this may bring the matter to the forefront and make more people conscious of what they are eating.
Saudi Food and Drug Authority
The Food and Drug Authority of Saudi had recently announced that it will be a requirement that the menus of restaurants should be more informative to their customer base.
Mandatory labeling of this kind has been introduced in certain other jurisdictions and is quite common in Europe and the US for some time. The hope is that this will move the nation forward in a positive way, and is part of their 2030 overall change to the country in large.
The change was to be implemented and become mandatory from the 31 December 2018, and so it is now in action.
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