• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 1, 2017

The Food and Drug Administration — like other federal agencies now reversing course under the regulatory-averse Trump regime — is making a last-minute bid to delay implementation of the menu-labeling rule that the FDA began pushing for seven years ago.

The rule requires that chain restaurants, supermarkets and other foodservice venues with 20 or more locations post calorie counts for all prepared items offered. Creating such a regulation was mandated by 2010’s Affordable Health Care Act.

Yesterday, the FDA submitted an interim final rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget that signals a delay in the implementation of the final rule, which was set to kick in on May 5. That final rule was released just last May, six years after the FDA released a draft rule in 2014. 

The National Restaurant Association actually stopped opposing the rule in 2009. It views a uniform federal standard as preferable to the costs of having to comply with a patchwork of differing state and regional laws requiring menu calorie and sometimes other disclosures. New York City pioneered since-emulated mandatory calorie posting for chain restaurants back in 2008.

But other trade groups, including the National Grocers Association and The Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing (NACS), have been seeking to block the federal rule. Although they failed to do so with the “Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act of 2015,” these opponents reintroduced essentially the same bill in February, after Trump was in office. That bill has passed the House, but hasn’t been voted on by the Senate.

Margo Wooton, director of nutrition policy for the nutrition advocacy nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Chicago Tribune that while the May 5^th implementation is “definitely in jeopardy,” supporters are still exploring the legal and political options. They are waiting to see what the Trump administration and Congress will do, and “Congress trumps Trump,” she said, adding that a decision will likely take several days.

A number of national restaurant chains, including Panera, Subway and McDonald’s, already post calorie information. And by now, most others have already invested significant sums in preparing to be ready to implement the rule in May.