FOOD AND HEALTH ESSENTIALS

FDA proposes extension to compliance dates for food labelling

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed extending the dates for compliance with its 2016 revised regulations on information required to appear on labels of food products sold or distributed in the U.S.

According to a proposed rule published in early October in the Federal Register, the FDA would extend by approximately a year and a half the implementation of changes to its food labelling requirements. The changes included updated nutritional information on the label of food, including dietary supplements; the definition of a single serving container; the use of dual-column labelling for certain containers; and updating, modifying and establishing certain reference amounts customarily consumed.

As approved in 2016, compliance with the new labelling requirements was scheduled to take effect starting in July 2018. However, under the FDA’s proposed rule, compliance would not be required prior to January 2020 for food manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales, and January 2021 for food manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual sales.

According to the FDA, the proposed change in compliance dates is intended to give the agency additional time to provide complete and detailed guidance to all manufacturers on a number of technical questions that have arisen since the publication of the revised regulations.

The complete text of the FDA’s proposed rule as published in the Federal Register is available here.