WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of lawmakers held a press conference yesterday to tout the recently introduced Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act (H.R. 2017), a bill NACS supports. The legislation, sponsored by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) is a thoughtful, well-crafted approach to requiring convenience stores and other retail food establishments to provide nutrition information to their customers. 

The bipartisan legislation is designed to address concerns that food retailers have with the final menu labeling regulations issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year. The legislation was developed “in such a bipartisan manner,” Sanchez said at yesterday’s press conference. “You don’t see a lot of that going on in the United States Congress today, but this is something that Cathy [McMorris Rodgers] and I definitely agree on.”

Under the regulations issued last year, retail chains with 20 or more locations must post caloric information for standard menu items on menus or menu boards or, for self-service items and foods on display, on signs adjacent to the items. They also must provide additional written nutrition information to consumers upon request. Covered retail food establishments are required to comply with those regulations by December 1, 2015.

The legislation introduced by McMorris Rodgers and Sanchez would, among other things:

• Require covered establishments to only identify one menu in the store to include calorie information. Under the existing regulations, every self-serve location (including soda fountains and coffee bars) and every area where food is on display must each include calorie information for every item sold there. The proposed legislation would permit stores to identify a single menu as the “primary menu” and, provided that menu complies with the requirements, stores would not need to include labeling in other areas of the store.
• Clarify that advertisements and posters do not need to be labeled.
• Provide flexibility in disclosing the caloric content for variable menu items that come in different flavors or varieties, and for combination meals.
• Ensure that retailers acting in good faith are not penalized for inadvertent errors in complying with the rule.
• Stipulate that individual store locations are not required to have an employee “certify” that the establishment has taken reasonable steps to comply with the menu labeling requirements. This provision mitigates the fear that store owners/operators could be charged with violations (including potential felonies).
• Provide stores 90 days to correct any alleged violation without facing enforcement action.
• Delay the date by which retailers must comply with the regulations for at least two to three years.

The legislation has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and NACS will remain active on Capitol Hill as Congress considers this important legislation.