Fighting For Smarter Nutrition Labels

In the summer of 2016, when I joined Chobani, the FDA had recently passed regulation mandating that all packaged food labels call out “added sugars” by 2020.

War On Sugar

The industry was a twitter – a consumer ‘war on sugar’ was already raging and this new labelling would be very bad for many businesses competing in the $8B US snack market.

Yet leading better-for-you companies, including my then-employer, were excited. This new labelling standard was going to be an incredible, category-redefining opportunity to broadly educate and inform Americans about the difference between naturally occurring sugars – like fructose in an apple, or lactose in dairy yogurt –

The abundant added sugar sweeteners used in so many competitive products; sugars that our bodies cannot process, that we know feed unhealthy addictions, that have fuelled an obesity epidemic, among countless other health-related crises both nationally and internationally.

Unfortunately, among the first orders of business for the current administration when they came to office in 2017, was to delay a transition to the new labelling protocol indefinitely.

However, some companies went forward anyway – including KIND bars. Today, despite some questions of ownership and accountability (the Mars Company of M&M fame, holds…