Food Manufacturers Anticipate Food Label Changes

February 20, 2006 - The FDA is on a mission to help consumers identify whole grains in a marketplace where outrageous heath claims run rampant, but all of their hard work may not be making a significant difference.

The FDA recently released a definition of what constitutes a whole grain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that anything labeled as containing whole grains must contain a comparable amount of the fibrous, protein-dense, and nutrient-rich portions of grains - the endosperm, germ, and bran - in the same proportion normally present in the intact grain.

At this time, the definition is only considered a draft, but if it becomes permanent it would require food labels be changed immediately. Food manufacturers are required to use this definition to determine whether their products meet the requirements to be considered a whole grain. The definition will also determine which products can make health claims as related only to true whole grain products.

Any message about whole grains that would qualify as a health claim requires either an authorization from FDA or a notification to the FDA. Health claims are statements that characterize the relationship of any specific food or food component to a disease or health-related condition. Health claims are often phrased in the form: "Substance X may reduce the risk of disease Y."

There are three ways to obtain clearance for a new health claim:

• A manufacturer can petition FDA for authorization of a traditional health claim.
• A manufacturer can notify FDA that it intends to make a health claim based on an authoritative statement from a federal scientific agency, as provided for under the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA).
• A manufacturer can petition FDA for a "qualified health claim" if the "significant scientific agreement" standard for a traditional health claim is not met.

Besides determining product claims, another challenge facing food manufacturers is the needed application of newer technology to appropriately offer their whole grain products. Retaining the bran, germ, and endosperm in the whole wheat product results in a shorter shelf life requiring new packaging. All this change ultimately is resulting in unhappy food manufacturers and a financial frenzy in the marketplace.

The FDA’s budget for 2006 Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is estimated to spend under 200 million dollars on items such as promoting the new whole grain changes along with all of the other food business they conduct. Broken down, the FDA doesn’t have a lot of assets to work with in promoting whole grains to the public where as food manufacturers use marketers to aggressively push their products to the consumers. Much too often they do this making claims of containing whole grain when they are actually selling processed flour.

The FDA is trying to look out for the consumers who have been duped into thinking they are eating whole grains by being more strict about whole grain claims on packaging. Doctor Grandma’s was founded on this awareness that consumers need a reliable product; one that can be trusted to always be made with the finest ingredients. The first ingredient on Doctor Grandma’s whole wheat product labels is always 100 percent whole wheat because we know the difference. We know the importance of eating healthy and yes… "Good Health Can Be Yummy."