USA—The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has unveiled a series of revised regulations aimed at improving the labeling and naming conventions of milk products.
According to the regulatory, the changes are designed to help consumers better understand and differentiate between various milk offerings, particularly those with extended shelf lives.
The new labeling will take effect on July 1, 2025. Key among the updates will be the introduction of the term “extended shelf-life fresh milk,” which will be used for milk products with a shelf life of 30 days or more.
This will ensure that consumers can identify milk that has undergone specific high-temperature treatments and aseptic filling processes to prolong its freshness.
The FDA’s revisions also address the growing competition from imported milk products, responding to concerns from the local dairy industry.
With tariffs on New Zealand dairy products set to zero from January 1, the same year, under an economic cooperation agreement, local producers have been pressing for clearer labeling to distinguish domestic fresh milk from imported extended shelf-life options.
Further changes include precise guidelines for label font sizes based on product volume to improve readability. For example, milk containers holding 300ml or less must use a minimum font size of 0.4cm, while those containing 601ml or more must use at least 1.2cm.
Additionally, the new rules require more detailed disclosures about milk fat and lactose modifications, as the labels will need to specify if the product meets the standards for whole, low-fat, or skim milk and whether it is low-lactose or lactose-free.
The FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu highlighted that these changes are part of an ongoing initiative to improve food labeling standards and assist consumers in making more informed choices about the dairy products they purchase.
These revisions, revealing a comprehensive effort by the FDA to make milk product labeling more informative and consumer-friendly, also expand to cover infant formula and special medical purpose formulas, are open to public comment for 60 days.
The revision announcement follows the approval of a major reorganization that involved forming a unified Human Foods Program (HFP) and implementing a new field operations model.
The restructure was intended to enhance the agency’s capability to secure the nation’s food supply and to improve its responsiveness to food-related emergencies, such as the infant formula shortages experienced in 2022.
According to the FDA, ensuring infant formula safety and nutritional adequacy remains a top priority, especially since many infants in the U.S. depend on formula for their nutrition.
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