In May 2016, FDA issued final rules changing the Nutrition Facts label for packaged foods and also updating regulations on serving sizes to – among other things – provide realistic Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed (RACCs).  Detailed summaries of both rules may be found here.

Today, FDA announced a final guidance, titled ‘‘Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels: Questions and Answers Related to the Compliance Date, Added Sugars, and Declaration of Quantitative Amounts of Vitamins and Minerals,” which replaces FDA’s January 2017 draft guidance.  The 2018 Final Guidance is intended for conventional food and dietary supplement manufacturers and offers new Q&As regarding added sugars (including examples for calculating added sugars in certain products).  Additionally, FDA finalized the extensions to the compliance dates for the Nutrition Facts label and Serving Size final rules.  For manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales, the compliance date is January 1, 2020.  For manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales, the compliance date is January 1, 2021.

FDA also announced a new draft guidance, titled ‘‘Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably Be Consumed At One Eating Occasion, Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed, Serving Size-Related Issues, Dual-Column Labeling, and Miscellaneous Topics.’’  The 2018 Draft Guidance includes Q&As on single-serving containers, RACCs, formatting issues for dual-column labeling, products that have limited space for nutrition labeling, and miscellaneous topics, including compliance issues relevant to chewing gum, multi-unit retail food packages, and beverages.  Comments on the Draft Guidance document need to be submitted by January 4, 2019, to be considered by FDA before it begins work on the final guidance document.