Food & Nutrition

White House Releases Fiscal Year 2025 Budget 

The Biden Administration released the President's fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget request to Congress, proposing $7.3 trillion in total spending. The budget request includes FY funding across several federal agencies to support food and nutrition initiatives and child nutrition programs. The budget provides $29.2 billion, a $2 billion increase from the 2023 enacted level, to fund USDA, including $7.7 billion to fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Additionally, FDA announced the agency’s request of $7.2 billion as part of the President's proposed budget, including $15 million to enhance food safety and nutrition initiatives to support the agency’s goals of the White House National Strategy for Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. This budget request provides insight into the President's policy priorities for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1, 2024. 

FDA Leaders Co-Author Journal Article on Agency Nutrition Labeling Initiatives

FDA leaders, including the agency’s Commissioner Robert Califf and Senior Advisor for Nutrition Policy at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition’s (CFSAN) Robin McKinnon, co-authored a journal article in Annals of Internal Medicine outlining several nutrition labeling initiatives at the agency. The publication highlights updates to the Nutrition Facts label, the agency’s exploration of the development of a standardized front-of-package (FOP) scheme to complement the Nutrition Facts label, and the agency’s development of a final rule to update the nutrient content claim “healthy.” In video remarks by Robert Califf regarding the article, he highlighted the importance of nutrition labels to help consumers identify healthier food choices, which have been shown to motivate food manufacturers to reformulate their products. The video also displayed examples of FOP prototype labels featuring saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar as nutrients to limit. The publication encourages clinicians and healthcare professionals to utilize FDA’s nutrition labeling resources to help patients and consumers make informed food choices and improve dietary patterns.

Study Examines Identification of UPF and HFFS Products for Policy Intervention

A study published in the Lancet Regional Health - Americas examined the proportion of food and beverage products purchased by U.S. households to identify foods high in saturated fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS) and ultra-processed foods (UPFs). The study examined 2020 nationally representative food purchase data and found that 50% of products purchased by U.S. households were considered UPFs, and 43% were considered HFSS. Researchers suggest that combining elements of the NOVA classification system definition of UPFs with HFSS criteria offers an effective approach to identifying ‘less healthy’ products targeted for policy intervention. The study recommends a simple, policy-ready definition of UPFs that considers the level of processing and its nutritional components. Additionally, researchers cite FDA’s current exploration of a FOP labeling system, suggesting that a determined definition of ‘unhealthy foods’ must be simple for the food industry to implement.

Food Safety

House Introduces Food Traceability Enactment Act

Representatives Scott Franklin (R-FL), Sanford Bishop (D-GA), and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) introduced the Food Traceability Enactment Act to strengthen compliance with the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) final rule, Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods. The legislation would remove requirements for restaurants, retailers, and warehouses to maintain traceability lot code information; require FDA to conduct at least nine pilot projects in coordination with restaurants, retail food establishments, and warehouses that are distributing to retail food establishments and restaurants; require FDA to submit a report on the findings from these pilot projects to Congress; and not allow the compliance date for the final rule to be earlier than the date that is two years after the date on which the pilot projects are completed. The compliance date for the final rule’s recordkeeping requirements is January 20, 2026.

House Introduces Agricultural Food Chemical Reassessment Act

Representative Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the Agricultural Food Chemical Reassessment Act. The bill would require USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to determine whether seven food ingredients used in meat, poultry, and egg products, including butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), cetylpyridinium chloride, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium nitrite, sulfuric acid, and titanium dioxide, are fit for human consumption and initiate rulemaking for each determination. In the bill's press release, Schakowsky highlights several adverse health concerns regarding each substance, citing their prohibition or restriction in the EU and their listing under California’s Proposition 65.

California Introduces Bill to Prohibit Artificial Food Dyes in School Meals

The California Assembly introduced a first-of-its-kind bill that would prohibit public schools, charter schools, and state special schools from offering, selling, and providing any food containing specified food dyes, including blue 1, blue 2, green 3, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, and food additive titanium dioxide in the state. The legislation’s sponsor, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, also introduced the state’s recently enacted California Food Safety Act, which bans the use of brominated vegetable oil (BVO), potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3 in the state beginning January 1, 2027. If passed, the legislation would take effect January 1, 2025.

Agriculture

USDA Publishes Voluntary “Product of USA” Label Claim Final Rule 

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) published the final rule, Voluntary Labeling of FSIS-Regulated Products with U.S.-Origin Claims. The final rule amends FSIS regulations that define the conditions under which the labeling of meat, poultry, and egg products may bear voluntary label claims indicating that the product is of United States origin. Under the final rule, the “Product of USA” or “Made in the USA” label claim will remain voluntary and eligible for generic label approval, however the claim will be allowed to be used on meat, poultry and egg products only when they are derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the U.S. The agency also published an updated labeling guidance on the use of voluntary U.S.-origin label claims and announced USDA’s investment of $9.5 million through the Local Meat Capacity grant program to expand processing options for the meat and poultry industry. The compliance date for the final rule is January 1, 2026.

Global

UK Opens Consultation on Food Country of Origin and Animal Welfare Labeling

The UK government, the Scottish Government, Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive opened a public consultation on proposals to improve transparency and consistency through improved country of origin and animal welfare labeling in the UK. The public consultation seeks comments to amend the country’s origin labeling requirements for food products, including mandatory origin labeling for minimally processed meat products, increased visibility of origin labeling, mandatory origin labeling for certain foods in restaurants, and greater control of the use of national flags on labels. The consultation also seeks comments to amend the country’s animal welfare labeling, including a mandatory label based on the method of production, differentiating between products that fall below, meet, and exceed UK animal welfare regulations, and a label applied to domestic and imported pork, chicken, and egg products. The public consultation closes on May 7, 2024.

On a related note, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued an open call for data regarding food additive occurrence of select substances in food and beverages. This call for data, launched annually, closes August 31, 2024. 

WHO Department of Nutrition and Food Safety Releases 2023 Key Achievements

WHO's Department of Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS) published a brochure highlighting the Department's 2023 key achievements and its progress toward universal access to safe, nutritious food and effective nutrition and food safety actions. The publication provides an overview of WHO’s significant progress in promoting healthy diets through the agency’s publication of guidelines on total fats, saturated and trans-fat and carbohydrates, non-sugar sweeteners, and a position paper on red meat. Additional key achievements include progress in eliminating industrially produced trans fat (iTFA) through WHO-recommended best-practice policies, publications to promote sodium intake reduction and track country progress in implementing sodium intake reduction policies, and efforts to restrict food marketing to children, among others.

Fun Fact: Rice is the primary staple food for more than half the world's population.