Regulating Ultra-Processed Foods in Brazil

By Daniela Guarita Jambor  

This article examines a regulatory shift in Brazil that reframes food advertising as a matter of public health rather than solely of consumer information. Focusing on the marketing of ultra-processed foods, regulators in Brazil have moved from traditional product-based controls toward a model centered on communication, symbolism, and consumer perception. Instead of introducing new bans or compositional standards, Brazilian authorities have developed a form of “regulation through language”, in which commercial speech itself becomes a regulated object.

1. Introduction—Regulating Through Language: When Advertising Becomes the Health Risk

In 2023, Brazilian consumer authorities banned the sale of a popular beverage that prominently displayed fresh fruit on its packaging, even though the product contained only a small fraction of real juice. In another case, a fast-food chain was sanctioned for promoting a sandwich named after an ingredient that did not exist in its recipe. Neither product was unsafe. Neither violated sanitary composition standards. Yet both were removed from the market. These cases did not involve contamination, false ingredients, or safety failures—only narrative misalignment.

These cases illustrate a broader regulatory shift underway in Brazil: a move from controlling foods through their physical characteristics to regulating them through the language, imagery, and narratives used to sell them. Ultra-processed foods have become the testing ground for this transformation.

Traditionally, food regulation in Brazil focused on safety, composition, and labeling accuracy. Advertising was treated as a matter of consumer information and market competition, addressed primarily through general rules against deception. Recently, however, advertising has begun to be reframed as a public health vector, capable of shaping consumption behaviors and, by extension, population health outcomes. This shift has placed commercial speech under a new type of scrutiny: not only must it be truthful, but it must also avoid narratives that could normalize unhealthy consumption or create erroneous symbolic associations with well-being, nature, or performance.

Ultra-processed foods occupy a unique position in this debate. They are not illegal, nor inherently unsafe. Yet they are increasingly associated—by public policy, scientific discourse, and consumer advocacy—with rising rates of obesity and noncommunicable diseases. As a result, regulators have sought ways to address their social impact without banning them outright. In Brazil, the answer has been to regulate how these products are presented, described, and emotionally framed.

This regulatory model may be described as “regulation through language.” Rather than imposing new technical requirements on product formulation, authorities are concentrating on the meaning conveyed by advertising: the expectations it creates, the emotions it activates, and the health narratives it implies. Packaging design, visual cues, and promotional slogans are now evaluated as carefully as ingredient lists.

The consequences of the “regulation through language” model extend beyond national borders. Similar debates are emerging in the United States, where regulators and courts are reassessing the limits of commercial speech in the context of public health, sustainability, and consumer protection. The Brazilian experience offers a preview of how these tensions may evolve, particularly as food policy intersects with behavioral regulation and constitutional principles of free expression.

2. What Is “Regulation Through Language”?

Food regulation has traditionally been grounded in tangible risks: contamination, toxicity, mislabeling, and unsafe ingredients. Enforcement tools were designed to correct factual inaccuracies or remove products that failed to meet technical standards. Advertising was regulated only insofar as it contained demonstrably false or misleading statements.

The emerging model in Brazil treats communication as a secondary layer of compliance, and regulators have begun to frame advertising itself as a potential source of health risk. This marks a significant departure from classic consumer protection frameworks and reflects a broader trend in public health policy: the recognition that behavior, perception, and cultural narratives can influence consumption as powerfully as product composition.

In this new model, the focus is not limited to whether a claim is technically accurate, but whether the overall message conveyed by a product’s marketing could shape expectations that conflict with public health goals. Terms suggesting naturalness or vitality, visual cues suggesting freshness or vitality, and emotional appeals linked to family, success, or well-being are now assessed based on how they may normalize or encourage the consumption of nutritionally poor foods.

Under this approach, the legal analysis moves beyond literal claims and into the realm of symbolism, narrative, and consumer perception. A product may comply fully with compositional standards yet still be sanctioned if its communication is deemed to create misleading or socially harmful associations.

The rationale behind this shift lies in behavioral science and public health evidence showing that advertising influences dietary patterns, particularly among children and adolescents. Regulation, therefore, seeks not only to correct falsehoods but also to limit the persuasive power of certain narratives.

Brazil’s experience reflects a broader international conversation about the boundaries of commercial expression in regulated industries. Similar tensions are visible in debates over tobacco, alcohol, and now food marketing.

3. Brazil as a Case Study: From Product Control to Narrative Control

Brazil offers a particularly clear example of how food regulation can migrate from technical oversight to communicational oversight. Rather than introducing a formal ban on ultra-processed foods or creating a new legal category for them, Brazilian authorities have relied on existing advertising and consumer protection rules to reshape how these products are marketed.

This strategy did not emerge from a single reform, but from the reinterpretation of long-standing legal instruments. Food law in Brazil has always prohibited misleading or deceptive claims. What has changed is the understanding of what constitutes deception. Today, enforcement is increasingly grounded in the idea that meaning is created not only by words, but by the overall context of communication, design, images, colors, brand identity, and emotional framing.

1. The Role of RDC No. 24/2010

At the center of this transformation is ANVISA Resolution (RDC) No. 24/2010, which regulates the advertising of foods with high levels of sugar, saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium. Although the resolution does not use the term “ultra-processed,” it has become the primary legal tool for supervising how such products are promoted.

RDC No. 24/2010 does not prohibit advertising. Instead, it limits the types of health narratives that may surround food products and requires warnings that counterbalance promotional messages. Rather than targeting ingredients or manufacturing processes, it targets symbolic associations. As a result, the compliance burden shifts from formulation to communication strategy.

ii. Enforcement Through Exemplary Cases

In practice, enforcement under this new model has relied on high-visibility cases that function as regulatory signals to the market. Beverage and food companies have been sanctioned not because their products were unsafe, but because their branding, names, or imagery created expectations that conflicted with their actual composition. Authorities have consistently emphasized the perspective of the “average consumer,” assessing whether the totality of the message could lead to misunderstanding. In practice, this has led to the withdrawal of products that were legally marketed but narratively misleading.Even when labels contain technically accurate information, the surrounding visual and emotional cues may be considered misleading.

iii. Advertising as a Public Health Tool

This regulatory model reflects a broader public policy shift. Advertising is no longer viewed merely as a commercial practice but as a behavioral influence capable of shaping dietary habits at scale. In this context, the state’s role is not only to prevent false information, but also to mitigate communicational strategies that may undermine public health objectives.

By reframing advertising as a potential health risk, Brazil has transformed food marketing into a form of regulated activity comparable to other sectors where speech is limited to protect collective interests. The result is a legal environment in which ultra-processed foods are not banned, but their narratives are tightly constrained.

4. Ultra-Processed Foods and the Behavioral Turn in Public Policy

The concept of ultra-processed foods originated in Brazil within academic research that classifies foods according to the degree and purpose of industrial processing. This classification has influenced public policy discourse. National dietary guidelines, health campaigns, and educational materials increasingly associate ultra-processed products with negative health outcomes and undesirable consumption patterns.

Notably, ultra-processed foods are not framed as inherently illegal or unsafe, but as behavioral risk factors that require intervention at the level of communication rather than formulation.

This behavioral lens has gradually altered the rationale for state intervention. Rather than focusing on isolated instances of consumer deception, regulators now emphasize the cumulative impact of advertising on public health. Marketing is evaluated not only for accuracy, but for its potential to normalize excessive consumption, especially among children and adolescents who are more vulnerable to persuasive messaging.

As a result, regulatory strategies have moved away from product-centered controls toward communication-centered interventions. Warnings, narrative restrictions, and symbolic constraints are used to counterbalance the emotional and aspirational appeals commonly found in food advertising. The objective is not to prohibit ultra-processed foods, but to weaken the cultural meanings that associate them with health, happiness, or success.

This shift mirrors developments in other regulated sectors, such as tobacco and alcohol, where behavioral influence and long-term population health risks justify limits on commercial expression. In the food sector, however, the move is more subtle. Instead of explicit bans, authorities rely on the regulation of language and imagery to reshape consumption environments.

In Brazil, ultra-processed foods have thus become the testing ground for a new form of public health governance, one that seeks to influence behavior not by controlling products, but by controlling the stories told about them.

5. The Supreme Court Signal: When Advertising Becomes Regulated Speech

The regulatory shift from product control to narrative control has not gone uncontested. Two cases before the Brazilian Supreme Court address this issue.

The first is a constitutional appeal involving industry challenges to the validity of RDC No. 24/2010. Lower courts had initially ruled that the Brazilian Health Authority (ANVISA) lacked competence to regulate advertising content, viewing such restrictions as an undue interference with economic freedom. In a preliminary ruling, the Court concluded that advertising for foods high in sugar, fats, and sodium could be treated similarly to other regulated forms of commercial speech, such as tobacco promotion. The reasoning was not based on censorship, but on risk prevention: when communication contributes to patterns of consumption that burden public health systems, it becomes a legitimate object of regulatory intervention.

A second constitutional challenge, brought by media and broadcasting associations, questions whether regulatory agencies may impose narrative restrictions without a specific act of Congress. At its core, the case tests the principle of legal reservation against the State’s duty to protect collective health. While the final outcome remains pending, the public hearings and early votes reveal a judiciary increasingly receptive to the idea that commercial speech is not absolute when it conflicts with fundamental rights such as health and consumer protection.

What emerges from these proceedings is a powerful institutional message. The Court is not deciding whether ultra-processed foods should exist in the market. Instead, it addresses how far the State may go in shaping the messages that surround them. By framing advertising as a form of regulated speech, the judiciary legitimizes a model in which language itself becomes a site of health governance.

This constitutional validation marks a turning point. It transforms regulatory debates from technical disputes into normative questions about the social role of marketing. In doing so, it reinforces the notion that communication—no less than composition—can generate risks worthy of legal control.

6. Why This Matters for the United States

American regulators and courts are also grappling with the tension between public health objectives and the constitutional protection of commercial speech. What Brazil demonstrates is how this tension may evolve when advertising is reframed not merely as information, but as behavioral influence.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have long enforced rules against false or misleading claims. These standards are rooted in factual accuracy: a claim must be substantiated, and omissions or exaggerations may trigger enforcement. Yet recent policy discussions suggest a broader shift. Issues such as childhood obesity, sustainability marketing, and “health halo” claims are increasingly viewed through a behavioral lens, where the overall impression created by marketing matters as much as the literal wording.

Brazil’s emphasis on imagery, emotional appeal, and symbolic associations mirrors concerns already raised in U.S. enforcement actions involving “natural”, “clean”, or “healthy” branding. For multinational food companies, this convergence presents new compliance challenges. Marketing strategies that rely on aspirational narratives—freshness, vitality, environmental virtue—may face heightened scrutiny even when ingredient lists are accurate. Compliance, therefore, can no longer be limited to regulatory checklists; it must include a critical assessment of how messages may be interpreted in different cultural and legal contexts.

From a policy perspective, Brazil offers a cautionary example of how regulatory authority can expand through reinterpretation, rather than new legislation. As U.S. agencies explore ways to address diet-related health risks, similar debates may arise over the permissible scope of advertising restrictions.

Brazil’s case suggests that the future of food regulation may depend less on redefining products and more on redefining the boundaries of commercial speech. For regulators, it provides a testing ground. For industry, it offers an early warning of a compliance landscape where language itself becomes a regulated asset.

7. Conclusion—From Product Compliance to Narrative Compliance

Brazil’s approach to regulating ultra-processed food advertising reflects a transformation in focus of health governance. Instead of focusing exclusively on what products contain, regulators are increasingly concerned with the values, expectations, and emotional associations created through marketing.

For companies, this transformation demands a broader compliance mindset. Legal review can no longer be limited to verifying ingredients, claims, and disclaimers. It must also encompass the broader narrative conveyed by branding, design, and tone. Beyond Brazil, this shift offers a glimpse into a future where food regulation  considers advertising-related behavioral change and symbolic meaning as understood by average consumers.

8. References

ANVISA. Collegiate Board Resolution (RDC) No. 24, of June 15, 2010. Regulates the offering, advertising, publicity, information, and other related practices aimed at promoting foods considered to have high levels of sugar, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, and beverages with low nutritional value. Available at: https://anvisalegis.datalegis.net/action/ActionDatalegis.php?acao=abrirTextoAto&tipo=RDC&numeroAto=00000024&seqAto=000&valorAno=2010&orgao=RDC/DC/ANVISA/MS&codTipo=&desItem=&desItemFim=&cod_menu=1696&cod_modulo=134&pesquisa=true. Accessed on Nov. 1, 2025.

Brazil Supreme Federal Court (STF). Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) No. 7788.

Brazil Supreme Federal Court (STF). Experts present viewpoints to the Supreme Federal Court on the regulation of advertising for medicines and foods harmful to health. Available at: https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/especialistas-apresentam-ao-stf-pontos-de-vista-sobre-regulacao-de-publicidade-de-medicamentos-e-alimentos-nocivos-a-saude/. Accessed on Nov. 1, 2025.

Brazil Supreme Federal Court (STF). Extraordinary Appeal (ARE) No. 1.480.888.

Consumer Protection Agency – PROCON/GDF. Another case of misleading advertising: DF Consumer Protection Office bans Coca-Cola from selling Del Valle Fresh. Available at: https://www.procon.df.gov.br/mais-um-caso-de-publicidade-enganosa-procon-do-df-proibe-coca-cola-de-vender-del-valle-fresh/. Accessed on Nov. 1, 2025.

Exame. “Whopper Ribs, without ribs: Burger King ordered to pay BRL 200,000 for misleading advertising.” Available at: https://exame.com/pop/whopper-costela-sem-costela-acao-200-mi/?utm_source=copiaecola&utm_medium=compartilhamento. Accessed on Nov. 1, 2025.

JOTA. STF resumes judgment on warnings in food advertising. Available at: https://www.jota.info/saude/stf-retoma-julgamento-sobre-advertencia-em-propaganda-de-alimentos. Accessed on Nov. 1, 2025.

 

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