Regulation Announcements
May has been a very busy month for the FDA. Both the new Menu Labeling regulations and the Nutrition Facts label regulations for packaged foods and supplements were announced.
FDA Has Finalized the Nutrition Facts Labels
On May 20, 2016, the FDA finalized the new Nutrition Facts and Supplement Facts label for packaged foods and supplements to reflect new scientific information.
ESHA will release an updated version of the Genesis R&D program prior to July 26th. The update will include all of the revised label formats and formulations. Additionally, the ESHA database has been populated to include Added Sugar data. Customers with access to the Genesis ESHA Cloud services and Genesis customers with current Priority Support will have access to the new program once it is released.
FDA Menu Labeling Final Guidance
The final guidance for industry on Menu Labeling was published in the Federal Register on May 5, 2016, and the FDA will begin enforcing the menu labeling final rule one year from this day, on May 5, 2017.
Continue Reading.
Menu Labeling Webinar
Join us on June 14, 2016, for a free webinar, “Restaurant Menu Labeling Using the Genesis Food Menu Report.” This webinar will provide an overview of the Food Menu Report in Genesis R&D. This restaurant-specific report displays your menu items along with their nutrient breakdowns as required by the menu labeling regulations. You can choose to display price, allergens, characteristics, additional nutrients, and more.
FAQs
Q: How can I get nutrition information for the new mandatory nutrients (Added Sugar, Vitamin D, and Potassium).
A: There are a few different ways to get nutrition information for these new mandatory nutrients
Database Analysis
Some ingredients in the ESHA database, especially USDA ingredients, may already report Vitamin D and Potassium. ESHA reports as much information as the suppliers provide.
Some ingredients in the ESHA database already include Added Sugar data. Notably, foods whose Total Sugars are equal to zero, ingredients that are defined by FDA as Added Sugars, and ingredients whose suppliers have reported Added Sugar values.
In Genesis R&D Foods, view the Spreadsheet report with all nutrients that pertain to the Nutrition Facts panel, and look for missing values. In Genesis, 0 means zero, a dash “–” means the data was not reported by the source.
ESHA will continue updating ingredient information as quickly as possible.
Contact Your Supplier
If you have entered ingredients from your suppliers, you may want to contact them directly for updated data to fill in the blanks.
Chemical Analysis
If you cannot determine nutrition values for Vitamin D and Potassium you may have to submit your recipes for chemical analysis. One thing to note, Added Sugar data cannot be determined through chemical analysis.