A reorganised US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has prioritised nutrition and has a broad and aggressive nutrition-focused agenda planned for the last half of this year, which will impact consumer packaged food companies of all sizes, as well as the food industry as a whole.
In an address at the IFT FIRST Annual Event and Expo in Chicago earlier this month, James Jones, FDA Deputy Commissioner of Human Foods said nutrition, along with food safety, now top the list of priorities at the FDA.
The FDA has a number of activities ongoing covering nutrition, Jones told the event but the top three on the list are new sodium reduction targets for food products, the “healthy” claim for food product labels initiative and front-of-pack nutrition information.
Sodium reduction
Sodium reduction in food products is a key priority at the FDA, Jones said.
A little background: in late 2021, the FDA unveiled voluntary two-and-a-half year goals to reduce sodium in commercially processed, packaged and prepared foods to reduce excess intake by consumers. The agency’s overall target is for an approximately 12% reduction in sodium across 164 categories of packaged food.
In his address, Jones said through the end of April 2024, the results look promising, according to FDA data. This is important information for packaged food companies because hitting this target will ease any pressure to make the sodium reduction goals mandatory rather than voluntary. Food makers and the industry as a whole prefer the latter.
“We’ve got data from the first year and a half of the goal, and the data is pretty encouraging,” Jones said in address. “We are seeing significant progress towards meeting this goal. This is a voluntary goal. As a regulator, I’m very suspicious of voluntary efforts but, when a voluntary effort works, I’m all in. So, we are going to be issuing a second goal of a similar reduction in the not-too-distant future.”
The second goal could be a slightly more aggressive sodium reduction target than the first but, as Jones indicates, it too will be voluntary. He said – and this is important information for packaged food companies – a paper on the new sodium reduction target is being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and the effort stands to be the first of the FDA’s major nutrition activities that will hit the street, either later this summer or in early fall.
Americans consume too much sodium, which can lead to a variety of health problems, including high blood pressure, which if untreated can be deadly. Much of the sodium Americans consume is in packaged food products and the FDA hopes food companies not only comply with the voluntary guidelines but figure out ways to exceed them. Meaningfully reducing sodium and sugar in packaged food products might be the single most important contribution the food industry can make to public health in the US.
Jones said the FDA is all for slow, gradual reductions in sodium reduction in food products, which is an industry-positive position that food companies should note and cooperate with because it’s far more cost-effective than a rule that would require more stringent reductions on a mandatory basis.
New definition of “healthy”
The second big nutrition-oriented agenda item from the FDA is an updated definition of what’s eligible for the voluntary term “healthy” on packaged food labels. In his address, Jones said the new rule from the FDA will “align much more closely to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which has evolved significantly since the first definition was released 30 years ago”.
Packaged food companies should watch this development closely because the current definition hasn’t been updated in a long time. It was set in 1994. The definition specifies limits for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, and qualifying foods also must provide at least 10% of the Daily Value for one or more of the nutrients vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein and fibre. In reporting earlier this year on the planned update, the FDA said the proposed changes to the “healthy” claim definition better reflect current nutrition science, federal dietary guidance and the updated Nutrition Facts label.
In conjunction with the new definition of “healthy,” Jones announced at IFT FIRST that the FDA is developing a new logo that denotes a “healthy” food product, which packaged food companies can use on eligible branded products.
This is a major development because it offers brands and products the third-party endorsement of the federal government in terms of what is and what isn’t “healthy” on grocery store shelves. Consumers are confused when it comes to recognising healthier packaged foods and it’s possible a uniform logo that exists across categories and within categories might be helpful to their in-store decision-making.
Front-of-pack labeling
The third major nutrition-focused action at the FDA is front-of-pack nutrition information labeling.
Jones said in the fall the FDA plans to issue a proposed new rule on front-of-pack (FOP) labelling for packaged foods.
“It [the FOP label] will identify a number of nutrients – like saturated fat, sugar, sodium – and bring some information to the front of the pack,” Jones said. “One of the things that I think all of us know is that consumers make most of their food purchasing decisions in a split second. It is not happening, for most consumers, by turning a (product) around and studying the label. The FDA label is on the back of the package, which is filled with all kinds of useful information. So, by bringing some of this information to the front of the pack, you can help consumers make much more informed choices related to the products that they are buying.”
Putting some nutrition information on the front of a food product package would be a major change in the order of things in the industry because it gives this information a higher priority in terms of the priority given to health and nutrition in a food product. FOP labelling makes nutrition more of a forethought rather than an afterthought because of the physical placement of the selected information on the front of the package.
New FDA agenda
Nutrition is now one of the three key focuses at the FDA, as the result of the agency’s recent reorganisation and creation of its FDA Human Foods Program (HFP). The other two key focus areas are chemical (food) safety and microbiological (food) safety.
In his IFT FIRST talk, Jones also said the FDA will leverage emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance its regulatory framework, including in the area of nutrition.
Innovation is key at the FDA as it is in the food industry, according to Jones.
“When you think about regulation, you don’t necessarily think too much about innovation and the application of technology,” Jones said.
“Yet it is incumbent upon us in government, those of us who are in the regulatory world, to be constantly looking for how innovation can be applied to what we do.”
Nutrition, regulation and the food industry
I argued in a column earlier this year that there’s never been a better time than right now for packaged food companies to make healthier products. The reason for this is the writing is on the wall, so to speak, when it comes to the link between nutrition and health in the US. Americans are consuming too much salt, sugar and saturated fats and the ultra-processed and processed foods that contain much of these ingredients are part of the problem.
The FDA seems to agree with my assertion based on its new prioritisation of nutrition and the key action items it’s focusing on for the remainder of this year.
The FDA’s sodium reduction and other key initiatives outlined here are voluntary. It’s in the food industry’s best interests to work with the FDA when it makes sense to improve the nutritional profile of packaged foods.
The typical American diet is shortening the lives of many Americans. High blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, the leading cause of death in the US, are out of control and all linked to diet.
There’s a growing momentum in the country to tackle the nutrition problem and food companies and the food industry as a whole need to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.