TY - JOUR
T1 - Opportunities to address the failure of online food retailers to ensure access to required food labelling information in the USA
AU - Pomeranz, Jennifer L.
AU - Cash, Sean B.
AU - Springer, Morgan
AU - Del Giudice, Inés M.
AU - Mozaffarian, Dariush
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank Oana Groza for her research assistance. Funding support: This research was supported by NIH Project Number: 2R01HL115189-06A1 Cost-Effectiveness of Health System and State-Level Strategies to Improve Diet and Reduce Cardiometabolic Diseases. (PI: Mozaffarian). Conflicts of interest: There are no conflicts of interest. Dr. Mozaffarian reports research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation; personal fees from Acasti Pharma, America’s Test Kitchen, Barilla, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Danone, GOED and Motif FoodWorks; scientific advisory board, Beren Therapeutics, Brightseed, Calibrate, Elysium Health, Filtricine, Foodome, HumanCo, January Inc., Perfect Day, Season and Tiny Organics; and chapter royalties from UpToDate; all outside the submitted work. Authorship: J.L.P. and S.B.C. conceived of the study. D.M. contributed to the overall conception and obtained funding to support the study. J.L.P. conducted the legal research and analysis and drafted the first draft of the full manuscript. S.B.C. oversaw the retail data analysis and drafted the first draft of the retail data results. M.S. and I.M.d.G. coded the data and provided input on interpretation. J.L.P., S.B.C. and D.M. contributed equally to the writing of the manuscript. All authors provided substantive feedback and editing of previous drafts of the manuscript. Ethics of human subject participation: Not applicable.
Publisher Copyright:
©
PY - 2022/5/24
Y1 - 2022/5/24
N2 - Objective: The rapid growth in web-based grocery food purchasing has outpaced federal regulatory attention to the online provision of nutrition and allergen information historically required on food product labels. We sought to characterise the extent and variability that online retailers disclose required and regulated information and identify the legal authorities for the federal government to require online food retailers to disclose such information. Design: We performed a limited scan of ten products across nine national online retailers and conducted legal research using LexisNexis to analyse federal regulatory agencies' authorities. Setting: USA. Participants: N/A. Results: The scan of products revealed that required information (Nutrition Facts Panels, ingredient lists, common food allergens and per cent juice for fruit drinks) was present, conspicuous and legible for an average of only 36·5 % of the products surveyed, ranging from 11·4 % for potential allergens to 54·2 % for ingredients lists. More commonly, voluntary nutrition-related claims were prominently and conspicuously displayed (63·5 % across retailers and products). Our legal examination found that the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission and United States Department of Agriculture have existing regulatory authority over labelling, online sales and advertising, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme retailers that can be utilised to address deficiencies in the provision of required information in the online food retail environment. Conclusions: Information regularly provided to consumers in conventional settings is not being uniformly provided online. Congress or the federal agencies can require online food retailers disclose required nutrition and allergen information to support health, nutrition, equity and informed consumer decision-making.
AB - Objective: The rapid growth in web-based grocery food purchasing has outpaced federal regulatory attention to the online provision of nutrition and allergen information historically required on food product labels. We sought to characterise the extent and variability that online retailers disclose required and regulated information and identify the legal authorities for the federal government to require online food retailers to disclose such information. Design: We performed a limited scan of ten products across nine national online retailers and conducted legal research using LexisNexis to analyse federal regulatory agencies' authorities. Setting: USA. Participants: N/A. Results: The scan of products revealed that required information (Nutrition Facts Panels, ingredient lists, common food allergens and per cent juice for fruit drinks) was present, conspicuous and legible for an average of only 36·5 % of the products surveyed, ranging from 11·4 % for potential allergens to 54·2 % for ingredients lists. More commonly, voluntary nutrition-related claims were prominently and conspicuously displayed (63·5 % across retailers and products). Our legal examination found that the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission and United States Department of Agriculture have existing regulatory authority over labelling, online sales and advertising, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme retailers that can be utilised to address deficiencies in the provision of required information in the online food retail environment. Conclusions: Information regularly provided to consumers in conventional settings is not being uniformly provided online. Congress or the federal agencies can require online food retailers disclose required nutrition and allergen information to support health, nutrition, equity and informed consumer decision-making.
KW - Federal regulatory agencies
KW - Food labelling
KW - Online food retail
KW - Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme
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U2 - 10.1017/S1368980021004638
DO - 10.1017/S1368980021004638
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123984063
SN - 1368-9800
VL - 25
SP - 1375
EP - 1383
JO - Public Health Nutrition
JF - Public Health Nutrition
IS - 5
ER -