On May 27, 2016 the FDA approved a redesigned nutrition label for food and beverage manufacturers that will impact producers of all sizes. More detail on the rule change is available on the FDA website.

So what are the implications for your business? Depending on your sales volume, you have two deadlines to meet the new requirements:

• If you have less than $10 million in sales, the deadline for new labels is July 26, 2019
• If you have more than $10 million in sales, the deadline for new labels is July 26, 2018

What are the major changes?

Serving Size Update

The FDA has defined new Reference Amount Customarily Consumed (RACC) amounts. For example a serving of ice cream is now considered 2/3 of a cup.

Added Sugars

You are now required to disclose added sugars on your food formulation. Ingredients like raw sugar, brown sugar, honey, corn syrup, and sugars from syrup are considered an “added sugar”.

Nutrient Disclosures

Vitamin D and Potassium amounts are now required, as well as the actual amounts of micronutrients.

Dual column labels

FDA Regulations states that if your serving size weighs at least 200% and up to 300% of your package, a dual column label is required.

Example:

Single Serving Weight 15.0g Total Food Weight: 45.0g Serving Size Ratio: 300% (45.0/15.0)*100 The Serving Size Ratio is between >200% and <= 300% which flags this FDA regulation and requires a dual column label.

Round up Rule

If your package has less than two servings, the FDA will force the serving size to be rounded up to the entire package. FDA Regulations states that a product that is packaged and sold individually that contains less than 200 percent of the applicable reference amount must be considered to be a single-serving container, and the entire content of the product must be labeled as one serving. Our product, Menutail, alerts you when this happens.

Example:

Single Serving Weight 15.0g Total Food Weight: 28.0g Serving Size Ratio: 187% (28.0/15.0)*100 The Serving Size Ratio is between <= 200% which flags this FDA regulation The new serving size is now 28.0g instead of 15.0g

Example:

Single Serving Weight 15.0g Total Food Weight: 28.0g Serving Size Ratio: 187% (28.0/15.0)*100 The Serving Size Ratio is between <= 200% which flags this FDA regulation The new serving size is now 28.0g instead of 15.0g

What actions should I take now?

Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed (RACC)

One of the biggest impacts to most manufacturers is the change of the serving sizes. For some products, this may force a change to the package size. To look up your new RACC values, you can find your food product at https://www.menutail.com/racc_lookup

Find out if your product needs a dual column label

Of all of the regulations, the biggest impact visually is a dual column label on your food package. Run a calculation from step #4 from earlier in the article and check if the rules apply to you. If so, you might consider reformulating some of your food serving sizes.

Check added sugars

It’s currently not known on how customers will react to the presence of added sugars on a nutrition facts label. That said, it is important for you to know how much added sugars are in your formulation to see if you might want to tweak any values for the future.

Have Questions?

Feel free to ask us at contact@menutail.com or visit https://www.menutail.com.