In the United States, food labels are primarily regulated by two federal agencies: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FDA oversees labeling for most packaged foods, while the USDA handles meat, poultry, and egg products. A few other agencies fill in the gaps for alcohol and advertising.
FDA: Most Packaged Foods
The FDA has the broadest authority over food labeling. If a product sits on a grocery shelf and isn’t meat, poultry, or alcohol, the FDA almost certainly regulates its label. That includes everything from cereal and canned soup to frozen vegetables, snack foods, bottled water, seafood, and dietary supplements. The legal backbone is the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which prohibits labeling that is “false or misleading in any particular.”
The FDA sets the rules for the Nutrition Facts panel you see on nearly every packaged food. Those rules dictate what must appear, how it’s formatted, and how serving sizes are calculated. Serving sizes aren’t chosen by the manufacturer. They’re based on reference amounts the FDA established to reflect how much people typically eat in one sitting.
USDA: Meat, Poultry, and Eggs
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) regulates labeling for meat and poultry products. This includes beef, pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, and processed egg products like liquid eggs or dried egg whites. FSIS also covers exotic species like bison and ostrich under separate authority from the Agricultural Marketing Act.
The split between FDA and USDA jurisdiction isn’t always obvious. A frozen cheese pizza? FDA. A frozen pepperoni pizza with enough meat? USDA. The threshold matters: products with 3 percent or less raw meat, or less than 2 percent cooked meat, fall under FDA jurisdiction instead. That’s why spaghetti sauce with a small amount of meat, pork and beans, and bagel dogs are all regulated by the FDA despite containing animal products. Wild game like deer, elk, and pheasant also falls under FDA oversight rather than USDA.
What Must Appear on a Food Label
Federal law requires several key elements on most packaged foods. The Nutrition Facts panel must list calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fiber, total sugars, added sugars, protein, vitamin D, calcium, iron, and potassium. Each nutrient is shown in grams or milligrams along with a percent Daily Value so you can quickly gauge how a single serving fits into a full day’s diet.
Recent updates to the label reflect newer nutrition science. Added sugars now get their own line, separated from naturally occurring sugars, so you can see how much sugar was introduced during processing versus how much was already in the food. Vitamin D and potassium became mandatory because deficiencies in those nutrients are a widespread public health concern. Meanwhile, vitamins A and C were dropped as requirements (though manufacturers can still list them) because most Americans get enough of both.
Ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight, so the first ingredient is always whatever the product contains the most of. Anything present at 2 percent or less can be grouped at the end of the list with a note like “Contains 2% or less of…”
Allergen Labeling
The FDA requires clear disclosure of nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. The first eight were established by the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004. Sesame was added by the FASTER Act, signed in 2021 and effective January 1, 2023. All the same labeling and manufacturing requirements that apply to the original eight allergens now apply to sesame.
Health Claims on Packaging
You’ve probably seen statements on food packages linking a nutrient to a health benefit, like “calcium may reduce the risk of osteoporosis.” The FDA controls what manufacturers can and can’t say through a tiered system. Authorized health claims require “significant scientific agreement” among experts before the FDA allows them. Qualified health claims have some scientific support but don’t clear that higher bar, so they must include qualifying language that signals the evidence is limited. Without that disclaimer, a qualified claim would be considered misleading.
Structure and function claims are a separate category. These describe how a nutrient affects normal body processes (“calcium builds strong bones”) without linking it to a specific disease. They don’t require FDA pre-approval, but they also can’t claim to treat or prevent a disease.
Alcohol: A Different Agency Entirely
Alcoholic beverages follow a separate regulatory path. The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, regulates labeling for wine (with at least 7 percent alcohol by volume), distilled spirits, and malt beverages like beer. Before any alcoholic product reaches shelves, the producer must apply for a Certificate of Label Approval. TTB reviews labels to prevent consumer deception and ensure accurate information about the product’s identity, quality, and alcohol content. The bureau even tests products in the lab to verify that calorie, fat, carbohydrate, and protein claims are accurate.
Advertising vs. What’s on the Package
There’s an important distinction between what appears on a food label and what appears in an advertisement. The FDA regulates labeling. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulates advertising. This division has been in place since a 1954 agreement between the two agencies. So if a cereal box makes a misleading nutrition claim, that’s an FDA matter. If a TV commercial for the same cereal makes the same misleading claim, that’s an FTC matter. The two agencies coordinate to keep their standards consistent, but they operate under different laws: the FTC Act for advertising and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for labeling.
How Labeling Rules Are Enforced
The FDA monitors compliance through facility inspections and product reviews. When a company violates labeling regulations, the FDA typically starts with a warning letter identifying the specific violations and giving the manufacturer a chance to correct them. Common violations include misleading health claims, missing allergen declarations, and misbranded products. If a company doesn’t respond or the violation is serious enough, the FDA can escalate to product seizures or court injunctions that legally block a product from being sold.
The USDA takes a more hands-on approach for the products it oversees. FSIS inspectors are present in meat and poultry processing plants, and labels for those products generally require pre-approval before they can be used.
Can States Add Their Own Rules?
The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act included federal preemption provisions, meaning states generally cannot impose labeling requirements that conflict with the six core FDA labeling provisions covering things like nutrient declarations, ingredient lists, and standard food names. However, states have historically pushed boundaries in areas not directly preempted. Some states have enacted rules around container fill, deceptive packaging, or specific claims that go beyond federal standards. State attorneys general have argued that local governments sometimes need to act faster than federal agencies to address public concerns, and in practice, some state-level requirements coexist alongside federal rules in areas where preemption doesn’t clearly apply.
Front-of-Package Labels: What’s Coming
In January 2025, the FDA published a proposed rule that would require a standardized “Nutrition Info box” on the front of most packaged foods. The goal is to give shoppers interpretive nutrition information at a glance, helping them quickly compare products without flipping to the back panel. The proposal would also update the criteria for “low sodium” and “low saturated fat” claims to align with current nutrition science. If finalized, this would be one of the most visible changes to food labeling in decades.