FDA Extends Compliance Deadline for Nutrition-Facts Label
By Abbey Lewis on Jun. 14, 2017WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has extended the July 26, 2018, deadline for the Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts Label and Serving Size final rules implementation. Manufacturers with annual food sales of less than $10 million had an additional year to comply, according to the original rules.
The FDA will provide further information regarding the extension through a Federal Register Notice at a later date, it said.
The new and improved labels are designed to better help consumers make informed food choices that support a healthy diet, according to the FDA. Changes to the label will include updated information regarding serving size, calorie count, percent daily value and nutrients listing.
"The framework for the extension will be guided by the desire to give industry more time and decrease costs, balanced with the importance of minimizing the transition period during which consumers will see both the old and the new versions of the label in the marketplace," the FDA said in a statement.
Click through for additional information regarding the rules and compliance extension ...
"After careful consideration, the FDA determined that additional time would provide manufacturers covered by the rule with necessary guidance from FDA, and would help them be able to complete and print updated nutrition facts panels for their products before they are expected to be in compliance," the FDA said in a statement.
In May, the Trump administration also delayed the deadline for complying with menu labeling for chain restaurants and has likewise eased Obama-era school-lunch regulations.
After the menu-labeling extension, Tom Price, President Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services, told NPR that the FDA would try to make that rule more flexible and less burdensome while still providing useful information to consumers.
The "decision by the Trump administration to delay a new round of food labeling mandates was the right decision," Michelle Minton, a consumer-policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wrote in a statement obtained by NPR. "Federal regulators were about to impose burdens on our nation's food companies while making nutrition labels harder for consumers to interpret."
"As with its delay of menu labeling, the FDA will end up denying consumers critical information they need to make healthy food choices in a timely manner and will throw the food industry into disarray," Jim O'Hara of the Center for Science in the Public Interest told NPR.
Other associations came out in favor of the delay, citing complications due to additional requirements around the U.S. Department of Agriculture's disclosure standard for bioengineered foods, also required to go into effect by July 2018.
"On behalf of our members, we thank the FDA for extending the compliance timeline for the new Nutrition Facts label and Serving Size rules. Dairy foods companies are committed to giving consumers the information they need to make informed choices, and appreciate the extra time to be sure that the information on the labels is complete and accurate," said Cary Frye, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs for the International Dairy Foods Association.