FDA announced its intention to extend the compliance date for the Nutrition Facts Label final rules
Source: Labeling & Nutrition > Changes to the Nutrition Facts Label
Original vs. New Format – Infographics to Help Understand the Changes (New Food Label Side by Side & Comparacion Paralela)
Compliance Date
On June 13, 2017, the FDA announced its intention to extend the compliance date for the Nutrition Facts Label final rules. The FDA will provide details of the extension through a Federal Register Notice at a later time.
In May 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized the Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts Label and Serving Size final rules and set the compliance date for July 26, 2018, with an additional year to comply for manufacturers with annual food sales of less than $10 million. After those rules were finalized, industry and consumer groups provided the FDA with feedback regarding the compliance dates.
After careful consideration, the FDA determined that additional time would provide manufacturers covered by the rule with necessary guidance from FDA, and would help them be able to complete and print updated nutrition facts panels for their products before they are expected to be in compliance.
As a result, the FDA intends to extend the compliance dates to provide the additional time for implementation. The framework for the extension will be guided by the desire to give industry more time and decrease costs, balanced with the importance of minimizing the transition period during which consumers will see both the old and the new versions of the label in the marketplace.
Recent Progress in Making America’s Food safer, Healthier and More Clearly Labeled
(Scott Faber, VP Government Affairs, Environmental Working Group)
- Proposed to cut food safety funding for the Food and Drug Administration by $117 million.
- Proposed to cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by $193 billion – a 25 percent cut – and cut international food aid by $2 billion.
- Delayed new labeling rules for menus and packaged foods that would give consumers more information about calories and added sugars, and so far failed to issue a draft rule to implement a new law on disclosing genetically modified ingredients in food.
- Weakened new rules designed to drive junk food out of U.S. schools.
- Proposed to eliminate several Department of Agriculture programs that helped farmers sell directly to local consumers.
- Proposed to eliminate funding for an entire division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that works to reduce obesity.
- Withdrawn new rules to protect drinking water supplies from polluters and proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 31 percent.
- Proposed to suspended two of the largest farmland stewardship programs and mothball others.
- Postponed new rules designed to strengthen animal welfare standards on organic farms and proposed to eliminate funding for programs that help farmers switch to organic farming.
- Reversed a ban on a pesticide linked to brain damage in kids and proposed cutting EPA funding for pesticide review programs by 20 percent.
- Punted on new rules to protect farmworkers from pesticides, and proposed to eliminate a program to train migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
- Mothballed new voluntary sodium guidelines that would drive reformulation of foods.