WASHINGTON --The U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health, chaired by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), held a hearing on June 4 to discuss bipartisan legislation regarding the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act's menu-labeling requirements.
H.R. 2017, the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, authored by committee member and GOP Conference Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), will provide clarity and flexibility for small businesses from some of the health care law’s most costly and burdensome regulations regarding menu-labeling requirements.
“The legislation will help small-business owners, franchisees, as well as consumers who want easy access to accurate nutrition information. Covered establishments, including pizza delivery businesses and grocery stores, will be subject to a cumbersome, rigid and costly regulatory compliance process to avoid violations and possible criminal prosecution,” said Pitts. “Fixing this burdensome regulation could benefit tens of thousands of restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores and small-business owners.”
Full Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), said the purpose of “H.R. 2017 is simple. Clarify the intent of this nearly 400-page regulation so that businesses can comply with it and so that consumers have access to caloric information. This is commonsense legislation.”
Sonja Yates Hubbard, CEO of E-Z Mart Stores Inc., Texarkana, Texas, testifying on behalf of the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), said of the legislation, “The Food & Drug Administration’s final menu labeling rules have serious flaws and appear to have been designed for chain restaurants. But food is sold in many different ways across the United States. … And the stores look very different--from convenience stores to grocery stores to food trucks. The FDA’s regulations simply do not fit these many different formats.
Unless the regulations are revised, some businesses may be forced to curtail some of their most innovative offerings and consumers’ access to a wide variety of affordable food options will be limited."
She added, "The manner in which convenience stores acquire, prepare and offer for sale fresh and prepared food differs greatly from how chain restaurants do so. The FDA’s final rule exhibits very little understanding of this reality."
She said that H.R. 2017 would allow for:
- One menu per store.
- Labeling flexibility (ranges, averages and "standard" offerings).
- Clarification on food items offered at fewer than 20 stores.
- Improvements on "draconian, unpredictable penalties" and certification.
- Provisions for inadvertent human error.
- Elimination of the "constant threat of private litigation."
- Time for compliance from Dec. 1, 2015, to two-years after the FDA updates its regulations under the new legislation.
Click here to view Hubbard's complete testimony and convenience-store channel-specific insights.
Israel O’Quinn, director of strategic initiatives for grocer K‐VA‐T Food Stores Inc., Abingdon, Va., on behalf of the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), and Lynn Liddle, on behalf of the American Pizza Community, a coalition of pizza chains, also testified in favor of H.R. 2017.
Karen Raskopf, chief communications officer of Dunkin' Brands Inc., Canton, Mass., and Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, testified against H.R. 2017.
"Grocery and convenience stores are increasingly competing against our restaurants and our franchisees. While we welcome the competition, we believe that the restaurant-type food grocery and convenience stores sell should be held to the same standards as the food that traditional restaurants sell," said Raskopf.
"Giving blanket exemptions to chain supermarkets and convenience stores from providing their customers with calorie information is not what most would call providing flexibility, nor would it accomplish the goal of providing nutrition information to the overwhelming majority of Americans who want it," said Wootan. "The restaurant industry and public health groups agree that all chain establishments that serve ready-to-eat prepared foods should post calories, including supermarkets, convenience stores and movie theaters."
To read full testimony from all five witnesses, text of the legislation and to watch the hearing, click here.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.