FDA: Calories on menus, menu boards delayed until 2016

The USA Food and Drug Administration said it would extend the deadline for chain restaurants to disclose calorie counts on menus by a year to the end of 2016. Because restaurants and retailers said they didn’t have enough time to comply with the rule.

Originally passed by Congress as a part of the healthcare overhaul in 2010, these rules affect any establishment that sells prepared foods and has 20 or more locations, including prepared foods departments at supermarkets, vending machine, amusement parks and movie theatres, among other establishments.

The calorie rule covers meals at sit-down restaurants, take-out food, bakery items, ice cream from an ice-cream store and pizza, movie theaters and amusement parks, which will be labeled by the slice and whole pie.

In addition, the menus must say that calories are based on a 2000-calorie diet, while other nutritional information should be available to a customer on request.

Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., introduced legislation earlier this year that would provide more exemptions to the menu labeling requirements, and ensure labeling requirements only apply to companies that make more than 50 percent of their revenue from selling prepared foods. That could mean cut fruit or other foods would be labeled in a salad bar, but not in a larger container for sale.

‘Some of our members are ready to implement menu labeling while others still need more time, ‘ said Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO if the National Restaurant Association.

The rules had already been delayed when the FDA issued them last November.

“Industry is doing everything they can to stonewall implementation of this important public health tool”, she said.