FDA announced on October 24 that it does not intend to take enforcement action against manufacturers in the first six months following the January 1, 2020, deadline to update Nutrition Facts labels on food packaging. The enforcement discretion extension follows the May 2018 compliance date delay, which extended the compliance dates for manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales from July 26, 2018, to January 1, 2020, while compliance dates for manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales moved from July 26, 2019, to January 1, 2021.
As a reminder, FDA issued final rules on May 27, 2016, to implement changes to the nutrition and dietary supplement labeling and serving size regulations. Some of the major provisions include the following:
- Removing the declaration of “Calories from fat”
- Requiring the declaration of the gram amount of “Added Sugars” in a serving of a product, establishing a Daily Reference Value (DRV), and requiring the percent Daily Value (DV) declaration for added sugars
- Changing “Sugars” to “Total Sugars” and requiring that “Includes ‘X’ g Added Sugars” be indented and declared directly below “Total Sugars” on the label
- Updating the list of vitamins and minerals of public health significance (e.g., requiring the declaration of vitamin D and potassium, and making voluntary the declaration of vitamins A and C)
- Updating certain reference values used in the declaration of percent DVs of nutrients on the Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts labels
- Revising the format of the Nutrition Facts label to increase the prominence of both the term “Calories” and the calorie information
- Removing the requirement for the footnote table listing the reference values for certain nutrients for 2,000 and 2,500 calorie diets
- Requiring the maintenance of records to support the declarations of certain nutrients under specified circumstances
FDA has posted a new Question and Answer document to its website to assist during this transition.
For more information and analysis on the labeling requirements, please see our LawFlash, FDA Issues Final Rules That Change Nutrition Facts Labels.