Department of Agriculture November 16, 2016 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is announcing that while FSIS is in the process of rulemaking to update the Nutrition Facts label format for meat and poultry products, establishments may voluntarily choose to use the Nutrition Facts label format that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalized (``Food Labeling: Revision of the Nutrition and Supplement facts labels'', May 27, 2016; 81 FR 33742; and ``Food Labeling: Serving Sizes of Foods That Can Reasonably be Consumed at One-Eating Occasion; Dual-Column Labeling; Updating, Modifying, and Establishing Certain Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed; Serving Size for Breath Mints; and Technical Amendments''; May 27, 2016; 81 FR 34000). As long as the information on the labels is still truthful and not misleading, FSIS will not find noncompliance if companies use the FDA format. When FSIS publishes a final rule to update the Nutrition Facts label format for meat and poultry products, companies would have to comply with that final rule by the effective date and will no longer be able to use the FDA format if it is different from the FSIS format.