All new food manufacturers face the same dilemma- whether they should include nutrition facts to their food labels. As a new entrant in food production, you might want to deliver your food products at their best to the customer, adding all the information they want and should know about your product.
And needless to say, a food product with little to no information about its nutrition will certainly make your customers think twice about buying the product. That’s because no matter how good or healthy your product claims to be – you need to back it up with nutritional information about the product.
While adding nutrition facts on your food label might make it appear more professional, it also requires you to maintain some regulations. After all, you can hardly make up nutrition facts about your foods without any scientific evidence to back it up.
It is even considered a felony in the jurisdiction to falsely label foods. So before you create your food label, you have to learn some rules on how to do so. Read on to find out more about it.
What Does It Mean To Have Nutrition Facts On A Food Product Label?
A nutrition fact label contains information about the nutrients present in a food. It includes how much fat, sodium, fiber, or sugar the food has.
While you can include the list of ingredients used to prepare the food, it doesn’t inform the customer how much nutrients they will get from the food.
So you can’t use the ingredient list or the nutrition facts as a substitute for one another. To provide a comprehensive idea about the food, the nutrition facts, and the ingredient list should complement each other.
What Are The Key Points a Nutrition Fact On a Food Label Should Include?
Nutrition facts should provide a clear idea about how many nutrients each serving of food will provide. Standard Nutrition facts should include-
· The serving size, mention both the total serving size that the package includes and the individual serving size.
· Total calories from a single serving
· Percent of daily values- it will help the customer with the meal plan
· Accurate nutrition terms (learn what exactly is meant by low calorie, low cholesterol, calorie-free, sugar-free, and other similar terms).
· Total fat, saturated fat, and trans fat
· Vitamin, potassium, and mineral content
· Additional nutrient contents like sugar, carbohydrate, or protein
What Does FDA Say About Adding Nutrition Facts On Your Food Label?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has some clear and strict regulations regarding when you are required to add a nutrition fact label or when you are not obliged to use a nutrition fact label on your food label.
However, the FDA regulations don’t stop you from voluntarily providing the nutrition fact label on your food product. While you need to submit the food ingredients to check whether it has an allergen, you are not obliged to submit a nutrition fact for all your food products.
But there is just one catch to it, your nutrition facts should be according to the FDA guidelines. In 2016 FDA devised new changes regarding the nutrition facts label on food products. The new changes include-
· Using large print for calories and servings per package
· Including “added sugar” on “total sugar,”
· Excluding “calories from fat.”
· Inclusion of vitamin D and potassium content is mandatory
When Is It Mandatory to Use a Nutrition Facts Label?
FDA has strict specifications of when you are obliged to add nutrition facts. If you are eligible for any of them, you need to add a nutrition fact label. These are the cases when you must include a nutrition fact on the food label-
· If your food claims to be “gluten-free,” “low fat,” or other similar claims.
· If your business or the store that sells your product has over $50,000 of food sales and over $5,000,000 of total sales.
· Businesses that have over ten employees (full time) and over 1,000,000 units of sales
When Can You Skip Over the Nutrition Facts on the Product Label?
Similar to the mandatory cases, there are cases when you are exempt from including a nutrition fact label on your food product. These cases are-
· Raw foods- fish, fruits, and vegetables don’t require a nutrition fact label.
· If your food contains an “insignificant amount”, almost zero amount of mandatory nutrients, you don’t need to put a nutrient fact label on your food. Beverages like tea, coffee, or food coloring fall under this criteria.
· If your food packaging is too small (only about 12 square inch surfaces are available for nutrition fact labeling), you don’t require to put a nutrition fact label on it.
· Businesses that don’t have a food sale crossing $50,000 or total sale crossing $5,000,000 are not obliged to put nutrition fact labeling on their food.
· Businesses that employ less than ten full-time employees or sell less than 1000,000 units are not obliged to put nutrition fact labels on their foods.
When Can You Make an Exception to the Rules?
For some cases, the FDA exempts you from providing a nutrition fact label on the food. However, if you want to provide nutrition fact labels voluntarily, you can surely do that even if you are exempted from it.
Besides, your business can be considered a smaller business for now, but with time if your business hits the big leagues, you will be required to provide nutrition facts labels by law. So it will be a good practice to start adding nutrition facts labels on your food from early on, even if you are exempted from it.
The Bottom Line
This entire discussion boils down to this; the law certainly doesn’t restrict you from using nutrition facts on your food products labels. However, if you decide to put nutrition facts on the food label, you must comply with the FDA regulations regarding this.
Ensure you list all the necessary nutrients listed by FDA and put them exactly the way FDA wants them. While the FDA will not fact check every item on your nutrition label, you should try to be as accurate as possible while providing them.
It will certainly boost your brand’s trustworthiness. And it is also a sign of commitment that you are ready for the time when your company grows, and you are obliged to put nutrition fact labeling on your food product.