What’s in a name, if the name is “natural”?

Plenty, to the rushed consumer grabbing a box off the grocery shelf. For that person, the words “natural” and “all natural” probably mean simply this: What’s inside this box is healthier to eat than what’s inside that box.

It is, in short, an apparent indication that the words mean something.

But not according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The federal agency that regulates the labeling of all foods and beverages except meat and poultry has no formal definition for natural or all-natural, and confirmed last week it has no plans to create one any time soon.

For Florida’s sugar industry, which uses both terms, that’s not good.

“It gets very confusing for consumers to figure out what they’re buying and what the label means,” said Barbara Miedema, spokeswoman for the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade. “We want a definition of what natural is so consumers know what they are buying.”

In February 2006, the Sugar Association – a trade group that represents U.S. sugar growers – filed a petition asking the FDA to define natural, requesting that the agency use the same definition the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses for meat and poultry products.

That definition states a product can be labeled natural if it contains no artificial ingredients and is only minimally processed.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest agrees that the FDA needs to do something.

“The main problem is that until the FDA defines natural, it lets the food and beverage industry engage in deceptive behavior,” said Stephen Gardner, Dallas-based litigation director for the Washington, D.C., nonprofit.

Two petitions under review

There’s no question that Americans are interested in foods they think are better for them.

Natural and organic foods and beverages accounted for $26.2 billion in sales in 2006, up 14 percent from $22.9 billion in 2005, according to Jason Phillips, research manager at the Boulder, Colo.-based Nutrition Business Journal.

Indications are that 2007 sales topped $30 billion, although the final numbers aren’t in yet, Phillips said.

According to the Mintel International Group Ltd. of Chicago, “all-natural” was the second most frequent claim – “kosher” was the first – made for new food and beverage products launched in the United States in 2007.

The words appeared on 2,023 foods and 405 beverages, Mintel said.

An FDA spokesman, who by agency policy cannot be quoted for attribution, said there isn’t much urgency in getting a formal definition for natural and all-natural.

The agency has a list of about 100 top priorities that it considers will have the greatest impact on public health, and working on a definition for natural isn’t one of them, the spokesman said.

“FDA has not established a formal definition for the term natural. However, the agency has not objected to the use of the term on food labels provided it is used in a manner that is truthful and not misleading, and the product does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances,” he said.

The FDA is considering two petitions – one from the Sugar Association and the other from Downers Grove, Ill.-based baking giant Sara Lee Corp. – but there’s no indication when it might act on them, the spokesman said.

“We have not been hearing from consumer groups on this,” he said. “We don’t have any evidence that people are confused.”

Melanie Miller, a spokeswoman for the Sugar Association, said that isn’t the point.

“The FDA should be looking at all issues that are important, and not wait for a survey that tells them unequivocally that consumers are concerned about this,” she said. “The fact that the purchasing of natural products has skyrocketed over the last four or five years should tell them something.”

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2008/01/14/c1bz_fdanatural_0114.html