Nutrition Labeling: Nutrient Content Claims on Multi-Serve, Meal-Type Meat and Poultry Products

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is amending its nutrition labeling regulations to change the definition of "meal- type" products to allow for nutrient content claims on multiple-serve food containers, to adopt the definition of "main dish" used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and to define how meal-type products and main dishes should be nutrition labeled. The change in the definition of meal-type products will allow nutrient content claims on qualifying products to be based on 100 grams of product rather than on the serving size, which is based on the Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed (RACCs) for the food components. These actions are in response to a petition filed by ConAgra, Inc. (the petitioner). The changes will help to ensure that FSIS' nutrition labeling regulations are parallel, to the maximum extent possible, to the nutrition labeling regulations of FDA, which were promulgated under the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990.