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How Will New Nutrition Labeling Requirements Affect Your Operation?

How Will New Nutrition Labeling Requirements Affect Your Operation?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has adopted a host of new rules aimed at making nutrition labels clearer and more informative to the average consumer. These rules could directly impact your labeling and packaging practices. You may even need to purchase new industrial label printers to fulfill your compliance obligations.

Fortunately, you have some time before the new rules officially go into effect. The original deadline was July 26, 2018, but that date has been postponed indefinitely.

However, the delay is no excuse to rest upon your laurels. You owe it to your operations and your consumers to plan ahead now so that you can be ready for any new deadline that is set.

To help you prepare, make note of the following three biggest changes the FDA’s new nutrition labeling rules may have for your operation.

Variable Font Sizes a Must

The previous nutrition label requirements had only a few variations on the text’s size and weight. Now, there are several additional sizes you may need to anticipate.

Calories will be displayed in a large letter size and a bolder font. The calorie count will be clearly visible and around the same size as the “Nutrition Facts” label heading itself.

Serving sizes will also require an increased letter size along with a bolded font.

These changes may seem minor, but it may require a completely new industrial labeling system to adapt. You may also require new industrial inkjet printers if your current models do not provide options for adjusting nutrition labeling templates. Many legacy printers and controller designs work from a library of font types that will not accommodate the new standards.

New Serving Sizes and Nutritional Values Must Be Calculated

Americans are eating larger serving sizes, and the FDA recognizes that. In response, they require products to carry larger, more realistic serving sizes that accurately reflect a typical portion.

Your nutritional label will therefore possibly need to recalculate all values in order to reflect the adjusted portion size. These values will all go up in that case.

Additionally, your product must account for certain vitamins and minerals by weight in addition to the daily value percentage. These nutrients include:

  • Vitamin D
  • Calcium
  • Iron
  • Potassium

All other nutrients can just use a daily value indicator, at your discretion.

Reduce Waste and Overhead … Switch to More Dynamic Print and Apply Industrial Label Printers

Once changes to the nutritional label have been implemented, you may realize that you have an excess of pre-printed product labels that no longer have a use. Unfortunately, these will all likely have to be repurposed, recycled, or wasted.

Should any additional modifications to FDA nutritional label requirements be made, you may find yourself in the same scenario all over again. Or, you could avoid it by switching to a print-and-apply industrial labeling system.

Print and apply labeling machines allow you to print new labels on-the-fly. There’s no need for pre-printed inventory, saving you on storage and printing costs. You can also implement changes immediately — not the next time you cycle through your back inventory of existing labels.

Changes like the new FDA nutritional labels are inevitable, requiring agility and modularity in your industrial packaging operation. Get the solutions you need to be flexible and compliant at a low cost when you contact a Raab Sales associate today.

 

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