07.05.17
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that the launch of an updated "nutrition facts" panel on foods, developed during the Obama administration, will now be delayed.
The deadline for which the food industry must comply with the new labeling will be pushed back for an undisclosed time, the Associated Press reports.
The new nutrition panel was designed to make it easier for consumers to see how many calories and added sugars a product contained. Specifically, the revamped label would make information on calorie counts more prominent, make serving sizes easier to understand, and point to the amount of added sugars a food or drink contains. Current labels only cite amounts of total sugar in a product, which might include naturally occurring sugars, the AP says.
The original FDA deadline for compliance was July 26, 2018.
In a letter sent earlier this year to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and other food industry groups had asked for an extension to 2021, the AP notes.
But the grocers association applauded the postponement. In a statement, the group said that food and beverage companies want to help consumers make informed choices, but that the "fast-approaching compliance deadline" was tough to meet without further guidance from the FDA.
This isn't the first time the Trump administration's FDA has slowed the introduction of Obama-era food industry rules. According to the AP, the agency recently delayed legislation forcing restaurants, grocery and convenience stores to post calorie counts for foods they sold until 2018.
The deadline for which the food industry must comply with the new labeling will be pushed back for an undisclosed time, the Associated Press reports.
The new nutrition panel was designed to make it easier for consumers to see how many calories and added sugars a product contained. Specifically, the revamped label would make information on calorie counts more prominent, make serving sizes easier to understand, and point to the amount of added sugars a food or drink contains. Current labels only cite amounts of total sugar in a product, which might include naturally occurring sugars, the AP says.
The original FDA deadline for compliance was July 26, 2018.
In a letter sent earlier this year to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and other food industry groups had asked for an extension to 2021, the AP notes.
But the grocers association applauded the postponement. In a statement, the group said that food and beverage companies want to help consumers make informed choices, but that the "fast-approaching compliance deadline" was tough to meet without further guidance from the FDA.
This isn't the first time the Trump administration's FDA has slowed the introduction of Obama-era food industry rules. According to the AP, the agency recently delayed legislation forcing restaurants, grocery and convenience stores to post calorie counts for foods they sold until 2018.