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A comment on How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models. Parent comment

Re:How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models by tzs on Sunday August 11, 2019 @12:32AM (#20666252)
That's wrong in regard to food labels. If the formulation has changed in a way that makes those already printed labels inaccurate, they already have to throw them away to comply with Federal law and FDA rules.

All dane-pgp's proposed law would change is that when they change the labels to match the new formulation, which they must do, they would have to include a change date or a version number of something like that on the new label.

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Re:How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models by everybodyknows on Sunday August 11, 2019 @12:45AM (#20666286)
A "last-modified" date on the standard nutritional info would be great pro-consumer regulation.

Now if we could only get a "roasted-on" date requirement for coffee ...

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Re:How shrinkflation is playing havoc with economists’ models by thaumasiotes on Sunday August 11, 2019 @03:09AM (#20666812)
> All dane-pgp's proposed law would change is that when they change the labels to match the new formulation, which they must do, they would have to include a change date or a version number of something like that on the new label.

The proposal was a lot more aggressive than that -- dane-pgp specified that the packaging must mention if the ingredients stay the same but their relative proportions change. Under current law, there is no reason to alter the labeling for such a change[1], so you'd be seeing a huge requirement for new labels that weren't formerly required.

[1] Actually, there are two. First, you might switch up the relative proportions so much that the rank order of the absolute amounts changes, which would require reprinting the ingredients list. This is really unlikely.

Second, you might end up altering the Nutrition Facts information. That would also require relabeling. I don't know how likely that is; the Nutrition Facts panel is a pretty low-resolution instrument.

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