The Food and Drug Administration is expected to propose changes to prepackaged foods sold in the US that would require key nutrition information to be displayed on the front of the package, in addition to the Nutrition Facts label already on the back.
The concept, designed to quickly inform busy consumers of the health impact of foods and drinks they're considering buying, isn't new. Around the world, dozens of countries already have front-of-pack nutrition labels in various designs. In Chile, for example, a stop sign symbol on the front of a product indicates whether it's high in sugar, saturated fat, sodium or calories. In Israel, such foods and drinks are marked with red warning labels. And in Singapore, drinks are given a letter grade based on their nutritional value.
Cookies labeled as high in calories, saturated fat and sugar in Santiago, Chile. Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images File
Advocates have been urging the FDA to mandate front-of-package labeling for nearly two decades to encourage people to make healthier choices and encourage food manufacturers to refine recipes and put fewer warnings on their products. The FDA was largely silent on the issue until it announced its intention to consider front-of-package labeling as part of a national health strategy unveiled at a groundbreaking White House conference on hunger, nutrition, and health in 2022. Since then, the FDA has reviewed literature on front-of-package labeling and conducted focus groups to test label designs.
But the idea faces opposition from trade groups representing U.S. food and beverage manufacturers, which created their own voluntary system for placing certain nutrient claims on the front of packaging more than a decade ago, and some of the label designs the FDA is considering could be challenged on First Amendment grounds.
“The United States interprets free speech more broadly than any other country in the world, to include corporate speech,” said Jennifer Pomerantz, an associate professor at New York University's School of Global Public Health who has studied First Amendment obstacles to mandating front-of-package food labels.
Her research shows that purely factual designs (such as those listing the grams of added sugars) are more likely to be deemed constitutional than interpretive designs with shapes or colors that characterize the product as unhealthy.
“When it becomes subjective, it becomes even more suspicious,” Pomerantz said.
Among the label options the FDA tested, some used traffic light colors to indicate whether a food was high (red), moderate (yellow), or low (green) in saturated fat, sodium, or added sugars, and some stated whether the product was “high in” those nutrients, adding the percentage of the recommended daily value provided by one serving.
Some of the experimental front-of-package label designs tested by the FDA. Reagan-Udall Foundation, FDA
An FDA spokesperson declined to say which label design will be used when speaking to NBC News, nor could they say exactly when the FDA would publish its proposed rules, other than to say the agency is “targeting this summer,” despite a previous deadline of this month.
More experimental label designs tested by FDA: Reagan-Udall Foundation
The Consumer Brands Association and food industry group FMI, which created a voluntary labeling program for the food and beverage industry in 2011 called “Facts Up Front,” have made clear that they oppose mandatory interpretive designs like red/green light systems. Interpretive labels “create unnecessary fear in consumers based on a single limiting nutrient without providing meaningful information about how the food fits into an overall healthy dietary pattern,” they said in public comments submitted to the FDA in 2022.
The association also said the voluntary system responds to consumer needs. “Facts Up Front” uses up to four icons on the front of packaging to highlight calories, saturated fat, sodium and added sugars per serving. Manufacturers can also include nutritional information for up to two “recommended nutrients,” such as potassium and dietary fiber. According to the Consumer Brands Association, hundreds of thousands of products have “Facts Up Front,” and as of 2021, it was listed on 207,000 foods and beverages, according to the most recent data available to the association.
Facts-forward labeling. Consumer Brand Association
“This is about giving consumers a quick, consistent and comprehensive understanding of the nutritional content of the products they buy so they can make informed decisions,” said Sarah Gallo, the association's vice president of product policy.
Supporters of mandatory front-of-package labeling disagree, arguing that the “Facts up Front” campaign is being underused. In contrast, federally required nutrition facts labels on the back or side of packaging appear on billions of products.
“Consumers can only have confidence in front-of-package labels if they appear across the entire food supply, not just on products from a few manufacturers who participate in voluntary programs,” said Eva Greenthal, senior policy scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food and health advocacy group that first petitioned the FDA for front-of-package labels in 2006.
She also said “Facts up Front” didn't provide enough background information to be useful.
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“Facts up Front doesn't provide any additional tools to help consumers interpret that information,” she said. “You need words like 'high in.'”
Courtney Gain, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, a trade group for the U.S. sugar industry, said her organization supports transparency but questions whether requiring front-of-package labeling would improve Americans' diets.
“There doesn't seem to be any evidence that this will make any difference,” she said.
But Greenthal and other advocates say there's data from around the world to back it up: In Chile, which became the first country to introduce front-of-pack nutritional information in 2016, studies have shown that people are buying as healthier consumers and choosing healthier product formulas.
“I think it's a classic anti-regulatory tactic of the food industry to dismiss the science that supports new policies that may be difficult to implement but are beneficial to society,” Greenthal said.
In its own review of the scientific literature on front-of-package labels, the FDA concluded that labels “may help consumers identify healthier foods” and “are likely to be helpful to people with less nutritional knowledge and busy shoppers.”
The debate comes as the percentage of Americans considered overweight or obese is on the rise, with obesity affecting about 42 percent of U.S. adults. More than 1 million Americans die each year from diet-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers, according to the FDA.
Zach Froehlich, an associate professor of history at Auburn University and author of “From Label to Plate: American Food Regulation in the Information Age,” said the statistics don't mean that nutrition labels, which were mandated on the back and sides of food packages 30 years ago, are a failure.
“Every time a label has changed, the food industry has changed the formula of the food,” he says, “so even if you don't read the label, the food is changing and that's affecting you.”
Greenthal said there are many people who would benefit from more nutrition information on the front of packaging: busy parents rushing through supermarkets, people with low nutrition literacy and those with limited time and energy to devote to food choices.
“Policies like front-of-package labeling shouldn't be implemented any sooner,” she said. “Diet-related chronic disease is one of the most significant issues facing our nation and a major drag on our public health.”
