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BEHIND THE MAY 8=BALL?

Ready or not, here comes nutritional labeling. As of May 8, most food products regulated by the Food & Drug Administration will be required to carry the new labeling information and format mandated by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. Meat and poultry products, regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, must follow by July 6, 1994. But a scant

Ready or not, here comes nutritional labeling. As of May 8, most food products regulated by the Food & Drug Administration will be required to carry the new labeling information and format mandated by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. Meat and poultry products, regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, must follow by July 6, 1994. But a scant month before the May 8 deadline, a casual survey of grocery store shelves showed that packages carrying the new nutritional label format are the exception rather than the rule. It's likely this still will be the situation on May 9. But, says Tim Willard, a spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, Washington, that's really no reflection of compliance. It will take several months for products packaged after the deadline to make their way through the distribution chain. Are packagers ready to make the switch? The majors are. For small and medium-size companies, however, the answer is less certain. Although many are ready, some are caught in a supplier production crunch, others don't realize the rules affect them and a few are holding off, hoping for an extension. Companies not prepared to make the change on May 8 are going to be in trouble. "The commissioner is very serious about compliance," says Dr. Edward Scarbrough, director of FDA's Office of Food Labeling. After May 8, FDA inspectors who visit a plant for any reason will include a label review, he adds. If products are found to be out of compliance, the company will receive a letter outlining the problem and requesting a response within 10 days describing how the deficiency will be fixed. FDA then will evaluate the response, based on how long it will take the company to fix the problem, its nutritional significance and good-faith efforts regarding compliance. An unsatisfactory response could result in additional action -- including seizure of the product.

There will be no extensions, either. In a sternly worded Federal Register statement published March 31, FDA said there will be no extensions or exemptions beyond those "formally recognized under the Act or provided for under 21 CFR 101.9(g)(9) because compliance is technologically infeasible or impracticable." The document explains that the May 8 deadline already represents the maximum leeway granted to FDA by Congress.

"The food industry has known since Nov. 8, 1990, that such labeling would be required and, thus, has had over three years to plan for this transition. "The agency expects that all products coming off a manufacturer's production line on May 8, 1994, after 12:01 a.m. will bear the required nutrition labeling, whether the food is directly labeled or put into containers." FDA went on to state that food processors may not label empty containers before May 8 with existing labels and fill them after May 8. Some food companies reportedly have interpreted a phrase in the Aug. 19, 1993, technical amendments, which read "labeled on or after May 8, 1994," to mean they could do this. However, FDA also noted that companies may use obsolete containers and labels if they can be brought into compliance through the use of stickers. With roughly 500,000 labels to change, compliance has been challenging and costly -- between $2 billion and $4 billion, estimates Aaron Brody, a principal with the consulting firm Rubbright Brody Inc., Devon, Pa. In addition to the expense of the nutritional analysis, redesign time and new printing plates-cylinders, virtually all plants will have some obsolete material. The scramble to prepare new labels by the deadline has pushed suppliers throughout the package production process, says J. Roy Parcels, founding partner of Dixon & Parcells Associates, a New York City-based design firm. "There's been a super surge of work. We turned somersaults to make it happen. All suppliers have," says Brian McGlynn, sales and marketing manager at Westvaco Ovenable Products Group, Richmond, Va. Although food processors have known since November 1990 that there would be new rules, the exact requirements have been refined almost continuously. "A lot of people waited because proposals were not finalized," says Kim Pohlman, director of sales and business development at Nutrition International, Dayton, N.J., a food testing lab that does nutritional, quality assurance and product development analyses. "It's not really a case of foot-dragging. They felt they didn't have the information needed to make an appropriate decision," she says.

"There's been some waiting for a clearer picture as to what's required and what's expected," says Don Shook, corporate communications manager at Graphic Packaging Corp., Golden, Colo., a producer of folding cartons and flexible packaging. Waiting for the dust to settle is not without justification, it seems. "A lot of people who complied early were caught by rule changes," Pohlman says.

For many small and medium-size companies, it's been a nightmare to figure out what needed to be done. The final regulation published in January 1993 occupied hundreds of pages in the Federal Register. Less well-known are the technical amendments published in August 1993, which resolved some uncertainties and added flexibility by allowing things such as alternate labels for specialized foods, aggregate labels for multipacks, a linear label format for small packages and a bilingual (Spanish-English) format. An eighth acceptable health claim, the role of folate in neural tube defects, also was noted. "Not all people seem to know what source to check for information," says Carrie Pinasco, marketing manager at Moss Printing, Chicago, a label printer. Pinasco says Moss often recommends customers work with a consultant specializing in nutritional labeling. There also are various computer programs and reference guides available. Having a new label out on the shelf doesn't necessarily end the confusion, either.

"A lot of food processors have done what they think is accurate work," says Shirley Barber, vice president of technical services at Nutrinfo, Watertown, Mass., a provider of nutritional data base analyses as well as compliance services to ensure labels meet requirements. "From what I'm seeing in the marketplace, there are a lot of inaccuracies as far as serving size and the use of nutritional claims that are no longer allowed," she says. "There's also confusion about whether nutritional information is based on the product 'as packaged' or 'as prepared.' It should be listed as packaged with a second optional column for as prepared," she explains. While FDA initially will concentrate on in-plant checks, label data also will be verified through the agency's random program, which picks up samples at retail to be analyzed. Locating inaccurate labels also depends on tips from competitors and consumers, says FDA's Scarbrough. On the plus side, food processors are using the label change as an opportunity to review packaging and formulations. Says Pohlman: "People are taking a look at how their label reads and how competitor labels read and making some decisions and changes."

Marketing executives also have realized it doesn't cost a lot more to dust off a dated image or improve impact or change the message the package communicates, says Herb Murrie, president of the Chicago design firm Murrie Lienhart Rysner & Associates. "Some products have fallen behind in communicating their goodness. This has provided a boost," he adds.

Indeed, some small firms don't plan to use the extension they've been given. "They feel a lack of nutritional information will be detrimental from a competitive standpoint. They have good healthy products and want people to be able to see what the numbers are," explains Nutrinfo's Barber. So far, the labeling law seems to be achieving its purpose: to encourage food marketers and processors to develop more healthy alternatives, to clarify messages and allow apples-to-apples comparisons. As Murrie sums it up: "Although everyone groans and moans, and shudders at the costs involved in the conversion, especially by the deadline, in the long run it will be a positive."