If you manufacture food products, you understand the need for Nutrition Facts labels that follow updated dietary and science recommendations. The label helps consumers to make informed choices regarding healthy diet. Its always recommended to hire a qualified expert consultant to help you navigate the regulations of food labeling. One wrong word can mean you must recall all the food and relabel it. FDA labeling isn’t something to DIY.  This article is meant to be a brief overview of some of the labeling requirements you need to keep in-mind. 

In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) updated the Nutrition Facts label on packaged foods to reflect current scientific information, including the connection between diet and chronic diseases like heart diseases and obesity. This was the first significant nutritional label update in over two decades according to the FDA (current as of 02/10/2021).

The regulators required manufacturers whose annual sales are $10 million or more to update their labels by January 1, 2020. Those whose yearly food sales fall below $10 million were required to update the labels by January 1, 2021. So, what changed?

Format and Font Requirements

While the label still maintains its iconic design, the FDA updated it to help consumers to access vital information at a glance. That way, they can make quick and informed nutritional decisions. Some of the changes include the type and size of fonts for ‘serving size,’ ‘calories,’ and ‘servings per container.’

In addition to listing the % DV (Daily Value) of Iron, Calcium, Vitamin D, and Potassium, the manufacturer needs to declare the actual amount of these nutrients. They can reveal other nutrients and minerals’ gram amounts voluntarily. 

Here are more specific requirements when formatting the label:

• The heading Nutrition Facts must be Fanklin Gotchic Heavy or Helvetica Black, flush left and flush right, no smaller than 13 point
• Serving size must be Helvetica Regular 8 point with 1 point of leading
• % Daily Value must be 6 points, Helvetica Black
• Total fat must be 8 points Helvetica black with 4 points of leading
• The vitamins and minerals section must be 8 points Helvetica Regular, 4 points of leading with 10 point bullets
• Type below vitamins and minerals is 6 point with 1 point of leading
• All labels enclosed by ½ point box rule within 3 points of text measure
• Requirements for lines have also changed 

More Updates

In 2018, FDA announced the Nutrition Innovation Strategy, which sets a strategic course for taking action to reduce preventable death and disease related to poor nutrition. From: https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-education-resources-materials/new-nutrition-facts-label current as of 06/29/2020

Serving Sizes are now larger and bold

The serving size details per container have now gotten real, appearing in large and bold fonts. According to FDA, they must be Helvetica Regular 8 points with 1 point of leading. The updates on the serving sizes also reflect the amount of food and drinks consumption today. 

Since the initial Nutrition Facts label’s birth, the term ‘serving’ has changed for some foods over time. While the Nutrition Facts label usually lists information based on one serving, some manufacturers may display the details per package. And one package may have more than one serving. 

Packages’ serving sizes requirements:

The size of the package affects the nutritional intake. So if the container has one or two servings (like 20-ounce soda), the manufacturer must list the calories and other nutrients as one serving since consumers typically eat or drink them in one sitting. 

Are you manufacturing larger products (with more than one serving) that a person can consume in one or multiple sittings? In this case, you’ll need to display ‘dual column’ labels that show how many calories and nutrients are there based on both ‘per serving’ and ‘per package (unit).’ Good examples include a pint of ice cream or 20-ounce soda. These dual column labels allow consumers to quickly understand the quantity of nutrients and calories they consume from the whole unit in one sitting. 

Calories got Bigger

Calories are also larger and bolder, so consumers no longer have to squint their eyes to find the information. While the 2,000 calories a day is now the general nutrition guide, the exact calorie needs vary depending on every consumer’s weight, age, height, sex, and physical activity. 

The Percentage Daily Value (% DV) Lows and Highs

The % DV displays the amount that a nutrient in a serving contributes to a total daily diet. Due to the updates, the item can be lower or higher on the new label. But here’s a general guide:

• Low nutrient per serving: 5% DV or less
• High nutrient per serving: 20% DV or more

Added Sugars, Vitamin D, and Potassium are Included

Added sugars are a new item on the label since consuming too much of these nutrients can hinder your body from meeting nutritional demands while maintaining calorie limits. These sugars include sugars that manufacturers add during food processing (think dextrose and sucrose), processed sweeteners (like the table sugar), sugars from honey and syrup, and those from concentrated vegetable or fruit juices. For single-ingredient sugars, the labeling requirements are different. 

Vitamin D and Potassium are other new entrants required to be listed since these nutrients’ intake among Americans mostly fall below the recommended amounts. The listing of Calcium and Iron didn’t change because of the same reason.   

Some Details are no Longer Necessary

The updated Nutritional Fact label no longer requires some information. You may ask, which are these details and why have they been erased? 

FDA has removed the requirement of listing calories from fat and continued to require total fat, trans-fat, and saturated fat. Why? According to studies, the type of consumed fat carries more importance than its amount. 

They’ve also gotten rid of vitamin A and C- rarely do people experience deficiencies of these nutrients nowadays. But food companies can choose to include them voluntarily. 

Wrap Up

The updated label can help consumers stay within their dietary needs’ limits successfully. They can now choose products with more of the nutrients they need and less of those they may want to cut down. More often, they will consider foods that are rich in dietary fiber, iron, potassium, calcium, and vitamin D and lower in added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat. 

If you’re looking for the correct package or bag for your products, consider Carepac. Many companies trust us because of the robust technologies and vast experience that go into our packaging solutions. We have you covered from eco-friendly to compostable bags, Kraft paper bags, to zipper top pouch packages. Contact us to get an instant quote now!

What does “getting the colors right” really mean when you design packaging? You know from experience that it means not only getting it right on the screen but when printed, not only when printed once but every time, and not only by one printer but all your suppliers wherever they are located. Whether used on a logo, package, or instruction brochure, the right color is essential to the brand because “brand” means continuity, consistency, and quality. At CarePac, we use the Pantone Color system to get your bags done right.

Color interpretation

For all our personal familiarity with color, of course—its emotional meaning to us, its stimulative qualities, and its evocation of memories—we all perceive colors slightly differently. Most often it is not the basic colors but the huge variations in shades that drive those disagreements, even arguments, about what color we are seeing. There are now thousands of colors available to use in creating packaging, so there is plenty of room for diverging perceptions.

So the challenge of getting the colors right is not when we are standing beside someone and looking at a swatch, but, instead, conveying that precise color to multiple printers, often in different countries, sometimes in different languages. And doing so over decades of changes in our suppliers.

These are the kind of challenges that gave rise to the Pantone color sets and the systems for using them in any possible context. Pantone identifies thousands of colors, in different sets for different applications, by letters and numbers to create a unique tag for every color.

Multiple materials

These different color sets specify and communicate color across different industries. For example, the Pantone Plus Series is based on graphic/printing ink and for half-a-century has constituted the Pantone Matching System (PMS). Each of the colors is specified with numbers and a suffix (for example, “C” or “U” to specify if the color is printed on coated or uncoated paper). Depending upon the paper, a Pantone color can look quite different when printed. The number and the suffix get the color right.

The only exception to this number-and-suffix system are the 18 Pantone Basic Colors (base inks) used to mix the rest of the colors. The basic colors have names such as Pantone Yellow. Another Pantone color system well worth mentioning is the Fashion Home + Interior Guides (FHI). The system is based on specifying textiles: paper (TPG) or cotton (TCX). Again, depending upon the material you are working with, you would choose the guide on which you want to visually see the color.

Thus, when you work with multiple materials and naturally want to achieve precisely the right color in final production, the pantone number makes possible complete satisfaction with the results. The reason is that the Pantone physical color reference guides, and also the Pantone digital tools for searches and matching, let you see before the printing and manufacturing process begins precisely the color you will get—and convey your choice unmistakably to everyone in the production process.

Multiple suppliers

Using different suppliers to produce your packaging and other brand materials inevitable entails some variations in the equipment and processes that will be involved. That means that the resulting color can be considerably different from supplier to supplier. The Pantone system of color tools—physical, digital, and cloud-based—enables you to specify unambiguously a single desired outcome for all those involved. The number given to any color tells the same story in every language, every culture.

Of course, if you can assign your production to a single supplier and use that supplier repeatedly, the process of communication and the opportunities for inconsistent results are greatly reduced. But for most companies the printing of a logo, packaging, and other brand-related materials must be repeated constantly. And as the company grows and production runs become larger and larger—and perhaps are most efficiently done in other countries—the color problem arises, again. Color measurement and evaluation tools from Pantone and its parent company, X-Rite, make it possible to achieve consistent color from run to run, no matter when or where it is produced. Pantone’s color measurement and evaluation tools mean precision and consistency in your color run after run in any location.

Pantones and digital printing

It is highly likely that your design process, today, is in large measure digital whether you are creating real-world or online designs. That means, you want to preserve color accuracy and consistency in moving between digital and physical environments. Pantone has the tools you need to move easily and confidently between those two worlds—to translate a brand’s printed colors into a website design and know how your website designs will look in physical form. Pantone Connect is a new digital platform that gives you immediate access to every Pantone Color in every Pantone Library. The Pantone color sets we discussed—and many more—are there.

Onscreen color is produced by a red-green-blue (RGB) system, mixing those primary colors to create others. But when you print from the screen, the resulting colors are produced by CMYK, which is called “four-color process” because it uses Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) and Black (K). The problem is that RGB and CMYK colors do not precisely match. Pantone has all the tools you need to make the translation again and again to achieve the same results in both environments.  

At Carepac we rely on Pantone

At Carepac, we use the Pantone color systems and tools in designing our bags for the spectrum of companies that seek excellent, consistent, distinctive packaging for their products.

Your next step in getting the color for your packaging every time is to reached out to the Carepac team of bag experts for all the support you need on art design. There is a Carepac bag for virtually any product you want to package efficiently, imaginatively, and for optimal marketing impact and sales. We are ready to discuss your individual needs at every step of the package planning, design, and production process.

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