Food exporters advised to make themselves aware of changes to US labelling requirements
Anna Power of Bord Bia’s North America office said that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to seek new indications of added sugars, as distinct from those naturally occurring; larger font size and more prominent ‘calorie’ figure; and more prominent display of the number of servings per package, and replacing the general ‘amount per serving’ with a specified serving size, for example ‘amount per cup’.
“The FDA recently unveiled proposals to update the mandatory nutrition facts label on US food packaging for both domestic and imported products,” Mr Power said.
“The changes are designed to address criticism over the misleading nature of current US labelling, particularly in terms of portion size and additives.”
The US public consultation period to discuss the new labelling is due to end next month. The FDA set an industry grace period of two years for food producers to effect the changes.
Other data likely to be required on future imports will include: Vitamin D and potassium contents; actual mg quantity of all vitamins and minerals, instead of merely percentage; and dual column labelling to represent both ‘per serving’ and ‘per package’ amounts.
The FDA also plans to update current recommended daily values and serving size requirements, to reflect realistic consumption habits.
“Food importers to the US should be aware of these new requirements, and reconfigure their US packaging accordingly within the grace period,” Ms Power said.
“This will mean the inclusion of both the general elements required on US nutrition facts not required on EU labels, including calories from fat servings per container, trans fat, cholesterol, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, the percentage daily value column, and the daily values footnote.”
US industry associations GMA and FMI have responded by launching a $50m (€36m) campaign promoting their own voluntary nutritional label ‘Facts Up Front’.
