Food Labeling Modernization Act of 2021: Here’s What the Bill Would Require

And with the pandemic resulting in an increase in the number of people shopping online for food, the need for nutritional information requirements that are available at the online point of sale has also grown.

Defining “Natural”

If passed, the new bill would also require FDA to define the term “natural,” which many believe would be very helpful for the industry. “The industry has been asking the FDA to define ‘natural’ for quite some time,” Stevens says. “The FDA initially expressed some interest in going down that road [in the original FLMA] but decided to take a pause because it is a loaded term and [it is] difficult for people to agree about what the term means. This is a breath of fresh air to see Congress looking to provide some clarity.”

Joel S. Chappelle, a food industry attorney also with the Food Industry Counsel, notes that the proposed rules governing the term “natural” are contentious; for years, regulators, industry, consumers, and commentators have sparred over the definition of the word. Despite the back-and-forth, no consensus has emerged, because “natural” is a diffuse term with an expansive breadth of meanings. “The FLMA’s proposed solution is to require a regulated definition based on consumer opinion surveys, which we already know will not produce a consensus, and public comment, which the FDA has been soliciting for years,” Chappelle says. “The bill would also require labels with the term ‘natural’ to prominently explain what the term does and does not mean.”

Beyranevand agrees that the bill’s attempt to address the definitions of “natural” and “healthy” is important, but is also difficult to put into practice in a way that captures the full range of meanings consumers associate with these terms. “It would be more beneficial to empower FDA to more stringently regulate potentially misleading claims, given the gravity of the public health crisis posed by diet-related disease,” she says.

Deceptive Marketing

A criticism of the original 2018 legislation was that it allowed marketing practices that could mislead customers. The updated bill looks to target trends in marketing that confuse consumers attempting to compare food products and would require new guidelines for the use of the word “healthy.”

“It requires products making claims about healthy ingredients like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to list the amount per serving or include percentages of these ingredients,” Beyranevand says.

The pandemic provided an opportunity for many to reconsider the food system, and the bill is an important step toward providing better and clearer information about food products to consumers. “If this bill was ever to have traction, now appears to be the time,” Beyranevand says. “Currently, poor nutrition is the leading cause of illness in the United States, and data demonstrated that those suffering from diet-related disease had worse health outcomes from COVID-19 than those who didn’t.”

If Passed

Some food producers are concerned about having to reconfigure their product labels and, potentially, product composition as a result of the law, if it is passed; however, what the bill would mean to companies would depend on what regulations the responsible agencies ultimately drafted. For example, the bill mandates reformatting the ingredient list “as necessary to assist consumers in maintaining healthy dietary practices.”

“It is difficult to know how reformatting an ingredient list would assist consumers to maintain a healthy diet,” Chappelle says. “At a minimum, it would mean huge cost increases, more lawsuits, more consumer confusion, and ostensibly enormous labels, as would be necessary to accommodate an explanation of what ‘natural’ does and does not mean.”

There is currently no timeline on possible passage of the bill.