WSJ Notes Labeling Trend Away from “Natural”
According to Wall Street Journal reporter Mike Esterl, products with the “natural” or “all natural” label represented $40 billion in retail sales in the United States in the preceding 12 months and market researchers have found that more than 50 percent of Americans seek the “all natural” label when they shop for food. Still, food and beverage companies have begun “quietly removing” these words from their product labels under pressure from dozens of lawsuits filed during the past two years challenging the terminology as false and deceptive.
Esterl notes that the litigation is complicated due to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision not to define the terms. He observes that courts have, in recent months, stayed several of these lawsuits and referred questions to FDA about whether the “natural” designation can be used on products containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients. Details about the latest referral by a federal court in New Jersey appear elsewhere in this Update. Esterl reports that food companies, such as Barbara’s Bakery, Inc., which paid $4 million this year to settle claims that it used non-natural ingredients in its “natural” products, have decided to replace the term with words such as “simple,” “wholesome,” “nutritious,” and “minimally processed.” See The Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2013.
Meanwhile, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) has urged FDA to reject court requests that it define “all natural” in relation to GM food and beverage products, saying that this regulatory gap should not be addressed “without first providing to the public notice of the proposed rulemaking and an opportunity to comment.” Alternatively, CFS calls on the agency “to define ‘natural’ in a way that prohibits the labeling of any food as ‘natural’ that was produced in whole or in part through the process of genetic engineering or that contains ingredients derived from genetically engineered organisms.”
Issue 503
