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Introduction: Monitoring the nutritional quality of national food supplies is key to nutrition research, policy development, and monitoring the food supply to curb diet-related non-communicable diseases. Objective: The Food Label Information and Price (FLIP) Program is a big data approach to the collection and evaluation of brand-name foods in Canada and Latin American and Caribbean Countries (LAC). Methods: FLIP is a longitudinal cloud-based database of packaged and chain restaurant foods and beverages collected since 2010 in Canada and since 2015 in LAC. The most recent iteration in Canada, FLIP 2020, used website "scraping", artificial intelligence-enhanced optical character recognition (AI-OCR), natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to collect, process and manage food label information on all foods and beverages available on seven major Canadian e-grocery retailer websites and 201 Canadian chain restaurants. Additionally, a pilot study was conducted to examine the feasibility of extracting Nutrition Facts tables (NFt) and ingredient list information from the food label photos in Spanish using AI-OCR. Results: FLIP-Canada is comprised of 119,541 packaged foods and 21,225 menu items. Automating categorizations and analyses of data allows for timely observations to support evidence-based public health policies including menu labelling, front-of-pack nutrition labeling, regulations restricting marketing of unhealthy foods to children, and sodium reduction guidance targets. FLIPLAC is comprised of 42,629 packaged foods and data were used to set the Updated PAHO Regional Sodium Reduction Targets, and to monitor progress against national, regional, and global sodium reduction targets as of 2022. Conclusions: FLIP, with its comprehensive sampling and granularity and recent use of AI-OCR, NLP and ML algorithms, is a powerful tool for greatly enhancing data collection and enabling the timely evaluation and monitoring of both the Canadian and LAC food supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the mean package size and manufacturer-recommended serving size of sweet beverages available in four high-income countries: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand.Design: Cross-sectional surveys.Setting: The two largest supermarket chains of each country in 2012/2013.Subjects: Individual pack size (IPS) drinks (n 891) and bulk pack size (BPS) drinks (n 1904).Results: For all IPS drinks, the mean package size was larger than the mean serving size (mean (sd)=412 (157) ml and 359 (159) ml, respectively). The mean (sd) package size of IPS drinks was significantly different for all countries (range: Australia=370 (149) ml to New Zealand=484 (191) ml; P<0·01). The mean (sd) package size of Dutch BPS drinks (1313 (323) ml) was significantly smaller compared with the other countries (New Zealand=1481 (595) ml, Australia=1542 (595) ml, Canada=1550 (434) ml; P<0·01). The mean (sd) serving size of BPS drinks was significantly different across all countries (range: Netherlands=216 (30) ml to Canada=248 (31) ml; P<0·00). New Zealand had the largest package and serving sizes of the countries assessed. In all countries, a large number of different serving sizes were used to provide information on the amount appropriate to consume in one sitting.Conclusions: At this point there is substantial inconsistency in package sizes and manufacturer-recommended serving sizes of sweet beverages within and between four high-income countries, especially for IPS drinks. As consumers do factor serving size into their judgements of healthiness of a product, serving size regulations, preferably set by governments and global health organisations, would provide consistency and assist individuals in making healthier food choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]