Argentine supermarket items' labeling causes distress for a Spanish woman residing in Argentina, describing it as an overwhelming burden
In the bustling city of Buenos Aires, a young Galician woman named Nahia Sanchez has been documenting her experiences on TikTok (@naahiasanchez). One of her most popular videos features her shopping in a local supermarket, and it has garnered over 383,000 views.
Nahia, who is currently enrolled in an Erasmus program in Argentina, expresses her frustration in the video, stating, "Shopping in Argentina is a 'fucking' nightmare." This sentiment is not uncommon among foreigners and Spaniards who find grocery shopping in Argentina to be a source of social curiosity.
The video showcases the detailed food labels in Argentine supermarkets, which are a stark contrast to what Nahia is accustomed to in Spain. In Argentina, food products are required to have comprehensive nutritional content, usage instructions, and explicit warnings on the packaging. These labels are bold and easy to spot, aiming to help consumers make informed decisions about what they're consuming.
This increased detail in Argentine food labels is a result of recent updates to the country's food labeling regulations. Effective from June 2025, the revised Argentine Food Code mandates the inclusion of such information on food products, as part of a broader public health initiative to counteract food industry interference and promote healthy nutrition.
The labels in Argentine supermarkets highlight excessive amounts of fats, saturated fats, sodium, and calories, as well as warnings for non-nutritive sweeteners and caffeine. This is particularly important for child health protection.
In contrast, Spanish supermarkets generally follow the European Union's food labeling regulations, which require nutritional information but often with less emphasis on mandatory front-of-pack warning labels and explicit usage warnings in bold uppercase letters. The EU labeling tends to be standardized but less stringent regarding warnings for vulnerable populations or front-of-pack "excess" labels compared to Argentina's recent legal reforms.
Nahia, who misses the Spanish supermarket Mercadona due to the labeling in Argentine supermarkets, laments that everything in Argentine supermarkets has an excess of everything. However, these detailed labels are part of a strong regulatory response to obesity and diet-related diseases in Argentina.
Going grocery shopping in Argentina can lead to viral moments due to these differences in supermarket experiences, making it a topic of conversation for foreigners and Spaniards. Nahia's video is just one example of how these cultural differences are being shared and discussed online.
People like Nahia Sanchez, a young Galician woman in Buenos Aires, find the lifestyle differences, including food-and-drink, particularly evident in grocery shopping experiences, as shown in her viral TikTok video about shopping in an Argentine supermarket. Home-and-garden products, on the other hand, may not present such stark contrasts, as evident by the lack of discussion around those items in her video.
