Here's What the New Nutrition Facts Label Looks Like

The new label seeks to be more informative to shoppers and consumers.

RL Food Testing Laboratory, Inc, in collaboration with the FDA, announced yesterday the new mandatory changes to the nutrition facts label. Changes must be implemented by July 26, 2018 by all food manufacturers with more than $10 million in annual sales. Food manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual sales will have until July 26, 2019. It's been more than twenty years since the last redesign of the Nutrition Facts label. The new label seeks to be more informative to shoppers and consumers, providing more clear and relevant nutritional information that can be easily understood.

As reported by PRWeb in a press release, mandatory changes include:

• A redesign of the label, focusing more on calories and servings per container, with larger type size font and more prominent placement of calories.
• Recommended serving sizes will be updated to reflect a more realistic representation of what consumers eat in one sitting.
• The Daily Values (DV) have been updated, some of which will include sodium and fiber.
• Sugars not occurring naturally in food, which are added by the manufacturer, must be declared as a required nutrient under the new section for Added Sugars.
• Dietary Fiber has been defined as a non-digestible carbohydrate and fibers which are beneficial to human health may be reported on the label. 
• Vitamin A and C are no longer required on labels and have been replaced with Vitamin D and Potassium.
• The foot note table has been removed and a statement has been added to explain what DVs mean.
• In addition a dual column label will be required for packages, which contain between 200% to 300% of the standard serving size and can be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings.

RL Food Testing Laboratory’s Registered Dietician and Food Label Expert, Emily Fonnesbeck, RD, CD. Commented that “Retailers are eager to have the new labels on their products because the original impetus for the change was consumer driven. Even though the FDA label is not required by food manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual sales until 2019, almost every retailer that carries those products will require a nutrition fact label to meet consumer demand and company policies for that information,”