US – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing to update the Nutrition Facts label found on most food packages in the US, with changes involving new labelling requirements for certain package sizes, updated serving size requirements and a refreshed design.
The changes proposed will affect all packaged foods except certain meat, poultry and processed egg products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Foods imported to the US will also have to meet the requirements.
One of the key proposed changes is borne out of a desire to reflect how people eat and drink today as opposed to 20 years ago when serving sizes were first established. By law, the label information on serving sizes must be based on what people actually eat, not on what they “should” be eating.
Hence, FDA is proposing that packaged foods, including drinks, that are typically eaten in one sitting be labelled as a single serving and that calorie and nutrient information be declared for the entire package. For example, a 20-ounce bottle of soda, typically consumed in a single sitting, would be labelled as one serving rather than as more than one serving.
For certain packages that are larger and could be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings, manufacturers would have to provide “dual column” labels to indicate both “per serving” and “per package” calories and nutrient information.
FDA is also proposing changes to the nutrition label design, including making calories and serving sizes more prominent to emphasize parts of the label that are important in addressing current public health concerns such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
In addition, FDA wants to shift the Percent Daily Value to the left of the label, so it would come first. The agency said that this is important because the Percent Daily Value would tell consumers how much of certain nutrients they are getting from a particular food in the context of a total daily diet. At the same time, the proposal includes a change to the footnote to more clearly explain the meaning of the Percent Daily Value.
Other proposed changes place greater emphasis on added sugars, vitamin and mineral nutrients information.
FDA is now accepting public comment on the proposed changes until end-May 2014. A final rule on the proposal is slated to be released within a year. While there is no deadline for a final ruling, the FDA is proposing that the food industry would have two years after the final ruling to implement changes – largely in consideration to the costs associated with food label revision.
Although FDA estimates that the cost to industry of labelling, reformulation and initial recordkeeping to be approximately US$2.3 billion, it argued that “The benefits far outweigh the costs”, noting “The cumulative benefits over 20 years range, on average, from US$21.1 billion to US$31.4 billion, depending on the inflation scenario used”.
According to the agency, the relabeling will help consumers make better healthy food choices and encourage the food and drink industry to reformulate many products that include too much added sugar, in turn resulting in US$20-30 billion in healthcare savings and other benefits over 20 years.
