US nutritional panel changes detailed

Posted by AFN Staff Writers on 15th February 2017

A US food testing laboratory has explained what America’s new nutrition panels will look like.

The new panels, which are the first major overall to American nutritional panels in over 20-years, introduces “realistic serving sizes”, added sugar declarations and clarification of the definition of dietary fiber.

The mandatory nutritional panel changes include:

An increase in type size for “calories”, “servings per container” and “serving size”. The number of calories and “serving size” declaration must be bolded
Manufacturers must declare the amount of Vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium. They must declare the percent Daily Value of these vitamins and minerals
The footnote will change to better explain what percent Daily value means
“Added sugars” must be declared in grams and as percent Daily Value
Vitamin A and C are no longer required to be on panels
“Calories from Fat” will be removed
Serving sizes must be based on the amount of food and drinks people typically eat, not what they should be eating
Food and beverages with one to two serving sizes, the calories and other nutrients will be required to be labelled as one serving size as most people will eat and drink this amount of food in one setting
For certain products that are larger than a single serving but that could be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings, manufacturers will have to provide “dual column” labels to indicate the amount of calories and nutrients on both a “per serving” and “per package” basis

Old vs. new US nutrition panels

The old nutrition panel on the left, the new is on the right:

Companies which make more than US $10 million in annual sales must update their nutritional panels by 26 July 2018. Companies whose sales are under this amount have until 26 July 2019.

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