FDA orders calorie labelling for US restaurant chains
Caloric ignorance will no longer be bliss at many US restaurants next year.
The Obama administration is to unveil labelling rules that require chains with at least 20 restaurants to display the calorie count of each menu item.
The changes, part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, will bring the type of calorie tallies used in New York and Seattle to restaurant chains across the country. The changes have been delayed for years, and were the subject of intense pushback from food chains and retailers that said they were unfairly being included in the mandate.
The final labelling rules, issued by the Food and Drug Administration, apply to cinemas, amusement parks, convenience stores and grocery store cafes. Some of those industries had argued that, since food service was a tangential part of their business, they should be excluded from the requirement.
Because those businesses are included in the final rules, calorie counts will be displayed for popcorn at a cinema, food from a salad bar, hot dogs from a convenience store and takeaway pizza. It will also be required of some alcoholic beverages.
The FDA said the goal was to help people make informed choices when eating out. It noted that Americans ate and drank about one-third of their calories away from home.
“While no single action can fix the obesity problem, the step we’re taking today … is a really important one for public health,” FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg said.
Grocery stores, cinemas and other businesses had asked the administration to exempt them from calorie labelling, saying the requirement would be impractical. Grocery stores, for example, said their prepared food changed so often that it would be impossible to test all of the items and create labels.
Vending-machine operators will be required to post calorie counts. The FDA said it would issue more guidance to instruct retailers on the font and colour of the labels. Food trucks, ice-cream vans and airlines won’t be required to display calorie counts.
The Food Marketing Institute, which represents grocery stores, estimated that the proposed requirements from 2011 would cost more than $US1 billion ($1.16bn) to comply in the first year, with ongoing costs reaching hundreds of millions of dollars. Kroger, a chain of grocery stores, said in comments to the FDA that the requirement could mean the loss of jobs or higher prices. Retailers have a year to comply, although vending-machine operators have two years.
The degree to which calorie labels impact the eating habits of consumers is still up for debate. A 2011 study found that Starbucks customers in New York ordered 6 per cent fewer calories following the publication of menu labelling in that city.
Source : The Wall Street Journal Tennille Tracy November 26th 2014
