The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to overhaul a Biden-era proposal requiring new labels on the front of packaged foods identifying a product’s level of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar, according to the agency’s top food official.
Kyle Diamantas, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for human foods, said the agency is considering feedback about the label’s content and design filed in response to a proposed rule the Biden administration published during its final days in January 2025. The rule is intended to help consumers identify, at a glance, healthier dietary choices.
“If you want to change it in certain ways, it’s likely that under the Administrative Procedures Act, we would have to re-propose front of pack and put that back out for additional comment—and so we’re weighing those options,” Diamantas told Bloomberg Law in an interview in Atlanta.
Changes to the proposal that merit additional comment could affect the agency’s stated goal of establishing a front of package labeling program in 2026. When asked whether the agency was considering revising or rescinding the proposed rule, Diamantas said “everything is on the table.”
Diamantas’ comments come after FDA Commissioner Martin Makary said “we did not like the front-of-package plan that we inherited” during a March 4 panel at the National Food Policy Conference.
Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have blamed outdated science for demonizing saturated fats. They helped develop new dietary guidelines released in January that didn’t eliminate a recommendation for Americans to limit saturated fat consumption—but the guidelines did encourage more consumption of foods higher in saturated fats such as full-fat dairy and red meat.
“If we have an opportunity to tell a person about the three most critical health features of a food, is saturated fat really number one?” Makary said in March.
Requiring a new nutrition label on packaged foods has drawn pushback from the food industry, who’ve raised concerns about compliance costs and suggested the FDA lacks the legal authority to enforce such a rule.
The current proposal would affect food manufacturers with more than $10 million in annual food sales first, with a four-year delay for businesses that make less.
Dozens of countries around the world have rolled out front-of-package nutrient labeling programs, with 17 countries enforcing mandatory requirements as of January 2026, according to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Global Food Research Program.
