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Big Shift In How Americans Eat Nutella Prompts FDA Petition

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Americans are putting more of their Nutella on toast instead of putting it on desserts, and now the federal government is looking to change the nutritional information on this famous chocolate-hazelnut spread.

The Boston Globe reports that the Food and Drug Administration is looking into the possibility of reducing Nutella’s serving size to one tablespoon from two because U.S. consumers are now eating it mostly in the morning. This change would effectively cut in half the calories and fat consumers see on Nutella’s label.

Italian company Ferrero – the closely held maker of Nutella – marketed the chocolate-hazelnut spread as a replacement for butter and syrup on breakfast pancakes, or to put it on toast and fruit. Ferrero petitioned the FDA in 2014 to change the serving size of Nutella to one tablespoon, which would put it on par with other breakfast toast spreads such as jam, jelly and honey. The U.K., Australia and France, among other countries, use the one-tablespoon serving size.

In the petition, Ferrero wrote,

Because Nutella is used in the same manner as jams and jellies, uniformity in RACC values among Nutella, jams, and jellies would enable consumers to make informed nutritional comparisons of these similar products.

The petition led the FDA to seek more information on flavored nut-butter spreads, such as intended use and typical consumption amount. If the FDA agrees to Ferrero’s petition, then American consumers could see half the amount of calories and fat, which is currently at 200 and 11 grams, respectively. By comparison, a single scoop of Baskin-Robbins cookie dough-flavored ice cream has 10 grams of fat and 180 calories.

The FDA is responsible for establishing “reference amounts customarily consumed” or RACC for nearly 140 food-product categories. Some of these categories are butter, coffee, pasta, tofu, cookies, egg rolls and canned fruits. The RACC helps determine a category’s serving size. In 1993, the FDA ruled that Nutella fell into the category called “Other Dessert Toppings.”

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