New food labels reveal total calories alongside ‘calories per serving’

Before now, the only way to gather the total number of calories in a bag of chips would've been to multiply the “calories per serving” by the “servings per container” on food labels.

The new label has “two columns, one for listing the nutritional facts related to a single serving and one listing the nutritional facts for the contents of the entire package,” said Claudine Kavanaugh, director of the Office of Nutrition and Food Labeling at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Credit: Courtesy ESHA Nutrition Analysis

Credit: Courtesy ESHA Nutrition Analysis

“We know that Americans are eating differently, and the amount of calories and nutrients on the label is required to reflect what people actually eat and drink,” she said.

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Kavanaugh said the new dual column label could lead to smarter consumer choices about calories and portion size.

“The new label will drive consumers’ attention to the calories and percent daily value of nutrients that they are actually consuming,” she said.

The labels do not need to be adopted right away and “should be viewed only as recommendations” for now, the FDA said in a guidance document about the change.

Additionally, the FDA said it would work alongside food-makers during the first six months of 2020 to comply with the new guidelines rather than take any enforcement action.

All U.S. food manufacturers with at least $10 million in annual sales were told to update their labels by Jan. 1, while smaller food companies will not need to adopt the new labels until 2021, the FDA said.