Breaking Down the New Nutrition Facts Rules - Part 3 of 3
Breaking Down the New Nutrition Facts Rules
Part 3: Related Rules
Posted by Dan Berg, Food Scientist, Analytical Services Manager
This is the third part of a three-part series on the Nutrition Facts Rules, published in 2016, and now in compliance in 2020. In part one we discussed RACCs (Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed), Dietary Fiber, and Added Sugars. In part two we discussed changes to vitamins. In this third part, we will cover some other rules and how they are related.
Defining Daily Values for a Healthy Claim
The Rules issued on Nutrition Facts and Serving Sizes made changes to the Daily Values (DV) for nutrients and the serving sizes for many products. These changes may disqualify a product’s ability to make a “healthy” claim since there are specific maximum limits to nutrients such as fat, sodium, and cholesterol, while also requiring some number of beneficial nutrients to be above 10% DV such as protein, fiber or calcium. But there is more; considering that current views on nutrition have evolved from when the Healthy rules were first published, FDA issued new guidance on using the term “healthy” along with the publishing of the Nutrition Facts rules. For example, FDA is exercising enforcement discretion relative to products not low in fat, but containing predominately mono- and polyunsaturated fats. They will also allow the new mandatory nutrients, Potassium and Vitamin D, to be options for nutrients meeting the beneficial nutrients requirements. Full guidance can be found here: https://www.fda.gov/media/100520/download
So any product making a healthy claim should be reviewed that it is still in compliance, and some products that were previously excluded may be able to make the claim now. This isn’t a closed topic, as FDA has asked for comments on how to define healthy, so look for more to come as this definition is revamped.
Aligning Several Regulatory Changes
As if compliance to the new Nutrition Fact Panel and RACCs was not enough, the transition overlapped with several other regulatory changes. Companies that distribute products in vending machines or through restaurants or food service venues have had to consider rules for those venues. So consider the overlap and if changes from one area affects the other. For example, calories may have been recalculated due to non-digestible carbohydrates or sugar alcohols, and does that now impact your claimed calories in a food service product?
Early on USDA FSIS proposed an update for their label rules on meat containing products to parallel the FDA rules and for a while it seemed that there would be alignment, as they issued guidance allowing for voluntary adherence to FDA rules until the USDA FSIS final rule was issued. However, this rulemaking has gone dormant, so we will continue to have the old style of nutrition facts on USDA regulated products. We have had years of some mix of nutrition facts styles in our grocery stores, and we can expect that to continue in the future.
Speaking of USDA, they recently published their final guidance on complying to the BioEngineered (BE) labeling standards. Another reason to make changes to a label, or at least review whether a change is needed. The exemptions and validations are a topic deserving attention in a future blog.
What’s happening for Nutrition Facts in Canada
In somewhat similar timing, Health Canada also made updates to their Food and Drug Regulations. Similar to the US, adjustments were made to the Reference Amount for serving sizes, but not fully aligned with US RACCs. Daily Values of most nutrients, vitamins, and minerals are equivalent to the changes that FDA is making, following the same nutritional science recommendations. But Canada is taking a different path on sugars with a % DV for sugars based on a total of 100g rather than the 50 g added for US regulations. They rather chose to emphasize the sugars used in a product by grouping them and thus raising their predominance to earlier positions in the ingredient statements. There are some other differences, but there is still some time as Canada originally set enforcement to begin Dec 14, 2021, and that may be pushed back as well to Dec 14, 2022.
With many changes on the horizon, Eurofins experts are available to provide advice on testing programs and how to properly calculate your nutrient declarations that align with the new regulations.
References
Use of the Term “Healthy” in the Labeling of Human Food Products: Guidance for Industry https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/UCM521692.pdf
Food Labelling Changes https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-labelling-changes.html