Posted June 2, 2014
Senator
Claire McCaskill, along with a bipartisan group of Senators, requests
flexibility on new food labeling rules, according to an article on ABC KSPR 33
available here.
The
group urges the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review
nutrition regulations ensuring that any adopted measures will allow flexibility
for restaurants and avoid unnecessarily burdening food retail establishments
that already provide nutrition information.
The
Affordable Care Act requires restaurants and “similar retail food
establishments” that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations to provide
calorie and other nutritional information for menu items. The Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) is responsible for defining what regulations would be
required of entities under the “similar retail food
establishments” clause.
Sen.
McCaskill wrote a letter to OMB Administrator Howard Shelanski, which called
for immediate review of the proposed rules by the FDA.
“Since FDA published its proposed
rule to implement nutrition labeling of standard menu items at chain
restaurants, many concerns have been raised about the regulations expanding to
non-restaurants, such as grocery and convenience stores, where the vast
majority of food products are already labeled with nutritional information.”
Sen. McCaskill also identified a set
of alternatives that would allow the food service industry to maintain their
commitment to customers while increasing their ability to comply with federal
law.
“Alternatives include: limiting the
scope of the menu labeling regulations to establishments where food service is
the primary source of revenue; allowing delivery operations to provide
nutritional information online; allowing multiple approaches for made-to-order
or variably sized items; allowing restaurants with drive-throughs to display
required nutritional information on a poster or pamphlet; and not penalizing
reasonable margins of inadvertent human error.”
In 2011, McCaskill and other group
members urged the FDA to limit menu labeling requirements to establishments
that have 50 percent or more of their floor spaced devoted to “restaurant or
restaurant-type food,” which exempts most grocery and convenience stores.
For more information on food
labeling, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
