On May 20, 2016 the FDA finalized the requirements for the new Nutrition Facts label for packaged goods. Primarily aimed at educating consumers with new scientific information about the potential health risks associated with certain diets, the new label format will offer a number of helpful features. A big step forward in keeping consumers informed about the health choices they’re making, these new requirements include updated nutrition science information, serving sizes and labeling requirements for certain packages as well as a refreshed design. They also come with compliance deadline of July 26, 2018.
What will the specific changes be?
Nutrition labels will now highlight caloric content in bold, as well as the servings per container information. Also being changed will be the serving size declaration. Manufacturers will now be required to share the actual amount –not just the daily value- in Vitamin D, calcium, iron and potassium. Further, they have the option to declare the amount in grams for various other vitamins and minerals. The footnote will also be changing to read “The % Daily Value tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.”
What does this mean for CPG companies?
This is sure to present labeling challenges for many CPG companies. With increase regulations on product safety and transparency, will call for companies to act quickly so that they can stay ahead of these regulatory requirements. For companies with hundreds or even thousands of public-facing SKUs, that need to be carefully adjusted. How difficult this is depends largely on the number of SKUs needing to be updated, the ability to track down the digital assets of these SKUs and whether your workflow system is able to process the workload efficiently enough to hit the deadline.
What are some of the potential risks or hiccups?
Companies will have to track down their soon-to-be outdated digital assets and comparing them with the new proposed changes, then adjust accordingly. Companies with Digital Asset Management (DAM) will likely be able to do this quickly and painlessly, as they’ll be stored and accessible from in a centralized database. The problems start to arise when companies that don’t have a DAM are forced to search for their digital assets that could be misplaced on employee hard drive or some remote server. That either means you have to use employee hours to track down those assets, or worse, you may have to recreate them altogether. Both scenarios result in unneeded expenses.
Another potential problem is whether or not companies have a workflow management system that can handle the heavy lift of meticulously changing so many SKUs. Companies who are still using a manual system would simply not be able to hit the deadline without putting an exceeding amount of strain on their workforce. But even a company with a workflow management system doesn’t necessarily have what it takes to hit the deadline. Without online proofing, cycle times can be long and high in volume. Errors can squeak by causing recalls or potential lawsuits.
That said, with the right Brand Lifecycle Management software (BLM) like the one that was utilized when, USG beat the GHS deadline, keeping up with regulations can be relatively worry free. A workflow system can help you perform exceptionally fast, efficient and accurate labeling changes with workflow routing, timing benchmarks, online proofing and more. The right Brand Lifecycle Management software can help you hit the deadline, often with a good amount of time to spare.
Download BLUE’s overview of Brand Lifecycle Management to learn more.
