Prepared meals have been a burgeoning opportunity in recent years for supermarkets and c-stores, but new FDA requirements that stores display calorie count information could dilute the payback.
The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, requires a national, uniform nutrition-disclosure standard for foodservice establishments as part of a push to curb obesity in America, where a third of calories are eaten or drunk outside the home.
The final labeling rules, issued last week, apply to restaurants, movie theaters, amusement parks, convenience stores and the prepared foods sold inside many grocery stores with at least 20 locations.
The Food Marketing Institute estimated the cost of complying with the proposed requirements at over $1 billion in the first year.
In 2011, opposing the mandate for grocery stores, the Kroger Company said its chefs often "use different ingredients based on what is seasonal or in stock. It is not unusual for ingredients to change regularly. The restaurant menu labeling rule would render that nearly impossible."
"This is going to take away from anything that's freshly made in the store because the costs involved will be so high," said Robert Rosado, the FMI's director of government affairs, told The Wall Street Journal. "You're going to lose fresh choices."
Kroger Co. said in earlier comments to the FDA that the requirement could mean job losses or higher grocery bills for consumers.
Grocers, c-stores and some other establishments had hoped the nutritional guidelines requirements wouldn't apply to them since prepared foods is a small portion of their overall business. Several trade groups are encouraging legislators to rework the ruling.
In a statement, FMI president and CEO Leslie Sarasin said a typical grocery store has 95 percent of food items already labeled with Nutrition Facts, disclosing nutritional information well beyond calorie counts. "They should not be pulled into a menu labeling law and regulation designed for a different industry," she said.
Ms. Sarasin added that a restaurant is not considered "similar" to a food retailer for the number of other regulatory requirements imposed on food retailers, including country-of-origin, bioterrorism, and allergen labeling as well as those associated with the Food Safety Modernization Act.
"The one-size-fits-all approach that FDA announced today would treat convenience stores as though they are restaurants, when in fact they operate very differently," said Lyle Beckwith, senior vice president for government relations for NACS. "It is now up to the bipartisan, bicameral opponents of this regulatory overreach to enact legislation introduced in both houses of Congress that reasonably defines a restaurant as a business that derives at least 50 percent of revenue from prepared food."
- FDA Requires Calorie Counts at Restaurants - The Wall Street Journal (sub. required)
- FDA Misses the Point of Menu Labeling: Grocery Stores are Not Chain Restaurants - Food Marketing Institute
- The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, requires a national, uniform nutrition-disclosure standard for foodservice establishments - National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS)
- Restaurant calories and government appetites - Chicago Tribune
- Food Labeling: Nutrition Labeling of Standard Menu Items in Restaurants and Similar Retail Food Establishments; Proposed Rule - The Kroger Co.