FMI Seeks to Limit Menu Labeling

SN STAFF

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Food Marketing Institute here said it has filed comments seeking to limit the scope of the Food and Drug Administration's proposed rule for a law regulating nutrition labeling on restaurant menus.

The association said one option FDA proposed "took an overly broad interpretation of the language found in the original legislation" by categorizing mainstream supermarkets as being similar to chain restaurants.

"Supermarkets that have chain restaurants inside [their] stores with menus and menu boards should and expect to label those menus in compliance with this law. However, it makes no sense and certainly was not the intent of Congress to ask supermarkets to find a way to label every cut up cantaloupe, olive in the olive bar or birthday cake," said Leslie G. Sarasin, president and chief executive officer of FMI. "This issue is not about nutrition information, which food retailers already provide on some 95% of retail foods, but is about the unfair application of a law to a group it was never designed for or intended to affect."

Supermarkets also would suffer a disproportionate cost to comply with restaurant menu labeling, she said.

As previously reported, the National Grocers Association also filed comments seeking to exclude supermarkets in the proposed rule.