Facing a lawsuit from the food industry and pressure from FDA, the City of New York agreed on Friday to not enforce menu labeling requirements against many restaurants, convenience stores, and other retail food establishments until May 7, 2018. The move aligns the City’s enforcement …
In November 2013, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA issued a regulation expanding the circumstances in which labels were eligible for generic label approval (see our previous post here). Under that regulation, meat and poultry labels need not be submitted for label …
In a blog posting that cited the agency’s goal of educating while regulating, FDA released the Food Safety Plan Builder (FSPB) – a software program “designed to assist owners/operators of food facilities with the development of food safety plans that are specific to their facilities …
In June 2017, two consumer advocacy organizations, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the National Consumer League (“Plaintiffs”), sued FDA challenging the Agency’s interim final rule extending the compliance date for menu labeling and request for comments (see our previous post here). …
Natural claims remain fodder for litigation. Although FDA’s December 2015 request for comments certainly impacted the filing of lawsuits (as discussed in our previous post), new cases continue to be filed, and plaintiffs bring up new arguments against natural claims. One relatively recent trend sees plaintiffs …
FTC and FDA issued a blog posting co-authored by senior officials that encourages the public to report potentially violative dietary supplements to one or both agencies. The posting lists the following as circumstances that should prompt a report: “You bought a dietary supplement that didn’t work …
With headlines focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the rapidly unfolding drama surrounding the repeal and replace efforts, one aspect of the ACA that could easily fly under the radar has been the subject of its own ongoing legal battles: menu labeling. To …
As we reported a couple of months ago, the naming of plant-based products continues to be an issue. For at least two decades, there has been uncertainty as to the use of the term “milk” and other dairy terms for products derived from plant material …
Earlier this week, USDA/AMS posted “Proposed Rule Questions Under Consideration” on its web page dedicated to the establishment of a National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. The posting asks for comment on 30 questions relating to different aspects of what such a standard might entail. Most of …
Last month we reported that FDA decided to delay the compliance date for restaurant menu labeling from May 5, 2017 to May 7, 2018 while it reconsiders certain aspects of the final menu labeling rule. The Agency requested comments from industry and other stakeholder about …
As readers of this blog know, in May 2016, FDA issued a final rule amending the nutrition labeling regulations for food and dietary supplements. Major amendments include a new requirement to declare “added sugar,” the setting of a daily value for added sugars (but not …
As we previously reported, FDA recently extended the compliance date for its restaurant menu labeling regulations to May 8, 2018. Just one day before the previous (May 5, 2017) compliance date, FDA published an interim final rule (IFR) that delayed compliance for one year and …
On June 13th, FDA’s Office of Nutrition and Food Labeling “announced” that it intends to extend the compliance date for the new Nutrition Facts requirements. As we previously reported, FDA received several citizen petitions requesting an extension of the compliance date. In addition, some in …
As readers of this blog know, natural claims have been and continue to be a frequent basis for consumer class actions. Initially, lawsuits appeared to focus on natural claims for foods (and dietary supplements). However, natural claims for personal care products also have become a …
A coalition of consumer advocates filed a lawsuit challenging FDA’s final rule that formally established the GRAS notification system. The complaint alleges that the rule “unlawfully subdelegates statutory authority to private parties,” that the “secret GRAS system is contrary to the FDCA,” and that the “criteria for …
