Trump admin. delays Obama-era reboot of nutrition label amid industry pressure

Labels made calories per serving and per package clearer, included added sugar count.

Following pressure from the food and beverage industry, the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it would indefinitely delay the rollout of new nutrition labels that were designed to help consumers better evaluate the contents and of packaged foods.

The nutrition label redesign was finalized in May of 2016 and championed by Michelle Obama as part of nutrition reforms. The tweaks include: highlighting calorie content, per serving as well as per package; noting the amount of added sugars; and adding the amounts of vitamin D, calcium, iron, and potassium instead of just showing percentages of daily recommended values.
Manufacturers originally had more than two years to refresh their labels with the new standards. The deadline for large producers was July 26, 2018, while those making less than $10 million in annual food sales had an additional year. Some companies are smoothly working on the roll-out of their new labels, while others pushed back on lawmakers, saying they needed more time.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), for instance, called the FDA’s indefinite delay a “common-sense decision,” citing lack of final details about added sugar and dietary fiber labeling. “The fast-approaching compliance deadline was virtually impossible to meet without the needed final guidance documents from FDA,” the association said in a statement.

In a March letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (obtained by advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest),the GMA urged that the deadline be pushed back until 2021.

Though the FDA made clear that the decision to delay the requirement came after “industry and consumer groups provided the FDA with feedback,” the agency has not released an updated deadline. In an email to the Associated Press, an FDA spokesperson said that more details would be released later.
But, despite GMA’s concerns over incomplete guidance, other food makers didn’t seem to have any trouble redesigning their labels. Candy maker Mars Inc., for instance, told the AP that it still intends to roll out the new labels this year and be in full compliance by next year. And The Washington Post reports that other early adopters include: Nabisco/Mondelēz, which has rolled the labels out on its Wheat Thins crackers; PepsiCo, which has put them on Lay’s chips, Fritos, and Cheetos; and KIND, which makes granola bars.

Mars spokesperson Brad Figel expressed concern that there might be two formats of nutrition labels floating around the market soon. Such a scenario could hurt businesses—for instance, those making unwholesome foods who do use the clearer labels, or those selling nutritious foods that don’t.
Despite this potential business pitfall, Figel said he wasn’t surprised by the FDA’s delay. “There’s just been a lot of pressure to extend the deadline,” he said.

The FDA’s label delay is just the latest in a series of moves to rollback nutrition and health policies laid out during the Obama era. In May, the Trump administration announced that it was hitting the brakes on efforts to improve the nutritional quality of school lunches, including reducing sodium and boosting whole grains. Also in May, the FDA delayed the roll out of calorie counts on restaurant menus.