
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994                   TAG: 9404220182
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FOOD INDUSTRY SAYS LABEL LAW COSTS BILLIONS

The U.S. food processing industry says it is spending $2 billion or more changing product labels in response to a new law.

The federal Nutrition and Education Labeling Act requires nearly all processed foods to have detailed information about nutritional content. May 8 is the deadline for companies to make their labels meet the new requirements.

The new labels are designed to provide consumers with more detailed information to improve their diets and to allow comparisons between foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Food companies are taking two major steps to comply with the rules.

They must analyze their recipes to find out what nutrients are contained in products. Analysis can be done either in-house or at outside laboratories.

And they must redesign their labels and packaging to meet the new requirements.

There are other costs involved, such as disposal of obsolete packaging materials.

The $2 billion estimate comes from the National Food Processors Association, a Washington-based trade group with 500 members.

``Most of the products need nutritional analysis,'' said Tim Willard, an association spokesman. ``That can cost up to $2,000 a product, and there are about 250,000 FDA-regulated products and a like number of (U.S. Department of Agriculture)-regulated products. That's a good way toward $2 billion.''

Lance Inc. has relabeled about 70 percent of its products, said Phil Brooks, the Charlotte, N.C.-based snack maker's director of corporate technical services. ``It's definitely different - we have more emphasis upon fat. We also added dietary fiber and sugars'' to the labels, he said.

Lance began changing its nutritional labels about two years ago, Brooks said.

Lance makes about 70 products. For each one, the company spends about $700 to verify its nutritional analysis. Brooks said Lance does its analyses in-house and sends them out to check their results.

Then, Lance changes the printing plates for the label of each product. Changing one printing plate costs $300, and the typical Lance package requires between two and seven plates.

All told, Brooks said it costs about $1,800 to relabel a saltine package.

by CNB