In March, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb announced a comprehensive, multi-year FDA Nutrition Innovation Strategy, which aims to modernize FDA’s approach to nutrition, help reduce the burden of chronic disease that stems from poor nutrition, and remove barriers to industry innovation.

On June 27, 2018, FDA published a notice of public meeting and a request for comments to give interested persons an opportunity to discuss FDA’s Nutrition Innovation Strategy. In the press release, Commissioner Gottlieb stated that much of the public meeting will cover three areas: (1) modernizing labeling claims, (2) modernizing ingredient labels, and (3) modernizing standards of identity, and expects the topics addressed at the meeting will include the following:

• A standard icon or symbol to denote the claim “healthy” on food labels;

• Creating a more efficient review strategy for evaluating qualified health claims on food labels;

• Discussing new or enhanced labeling statements or claims that could facilitate innovation to promote healthful eating patterns;

• Modernizing the standards of identity to provide more flexibility for the development of healthier products, while making sure consumers have accurate information about the products;

• Providing opportunities to make ingredient information more consumer friendly; and

• FDA’s educational campaign for consumers about the Updated Nutrition Facts Label.

FDA will be opening a docket to take public feedback on these topics. FDA stated their specific interest in hearing about the implementation of current standards of identity, and whether FDA should update the existing standards or change enforcement methods. FDA wants to know “if consumers are being misled in ways that can adversely affect their dietary decisions when certain products qualify themselves with terms such as milk or rice, but are made from ingredients that don’t reflect the traditional assumptions about how products labeled that way are derived.” As previously mentioned on this blog, this issue has most recently focused on the labeling of plant-based products as “milk.”

The public meeting will take place on July 26, 2018. Interested parties may submit comments on this public meeting by August 27, 2018.