Helping Guide Smart Food and Beverage Choices
No matter where you shop or what brands you buy – the Smart Choices Program, a new front-of-pack nutrition labeling program, aims to help shoppers make smarter food and beverage choices within product categories that fit within their daily calorie needs, at-a-glance, throughout the supermarket.
The Smart Choices Program was motivated by the need for a single, trusted and reliable front-of-pack nutrition labeling program that U.S. food manufacturers and retailers could voluntarily adopt to help guide people in making food and beverage choices that fit within their daily calorie needs.
The hope is that the Smart Choices Program will be the most widely used front-of-pack labeling program in the United States, and ultimately assist people in making positive dietary changes to help enhance public health.
The Smart Choices Program includes a symbol that identifies smarter food and beverage choices within specific product categories on the front of the package. Products that qualify for the Smart Choices Program symbol also will display calorie information on the front of the package, which clearly states calories per serving and number of servings per container. The goal is to help people stay within their daily calorie needs and make it easier for calorie comparisons within product categories.
To qualify, a product must meet specific nutrition criteria that were developed based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other sources of nutrition science and authoritative guidance.
It is anticipated
that the first products carrying the
new symbol will be seen in grocery
stores beginning in mid-2009 on a
voluntary basis.
What Shoppers Will See On the Package
Because shoppers are often strapped for time and need to make choices quickly, the Smart Choices Program will provide at-a-glance information on the front of the package, in addition to the Nutrition Facts panel on the back of packages. This includes:
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A symbol to help you make smarter food and beverage choices within product categories, and |
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Calorie information that identifies calories per serving and servings per container on the front of the package with the intent of helping people stay within their daily calorie needs. |
Visit the Nutrition Criteria section for more information on how foods and beverages qualify.
Smart Choices Program Principles
The Smart Choices Program was created by a diverse group of scientists, academicians, health and research organizations, food and beverage manufacturers and retailers. The group worked collaboratively to develop the program’s foundation, goals and criteria using a set of guiding principles.
- Transparent – both the nutrition criteria and governing mechanism are shared openly
- Coalition-based – scientists, academicians, nutrition educators, public health organizations, food manufacturers, retailers and government observers came together to create a robust system designed to you, the consumer
- Comprehensive – program applies to diet and health needs of entire U.S. population
- Applied voluntarily – all food companies are encouraged to utilize this one system to reduce the clutter of multiple, smaller front-of-pack labeling systems currently on the market
- Flexible – the nutrient criteria are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and can be modified as needed when the 2010 guidelines are released
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