Who is responsible for the accuracy of nutrient values on labels?
Regardless of how nutrient values are determined, food manufacturers, importers and distributors are responsible for the accuracy of label values and for maintaining appropriate documentation related to those values. Ingredient suppliers are also accountable for the nutrition information they provide to their customers. There are particular requirements for a nutrition labelling value. These standards can make treatment of data for this use quite different from other uses: • There are compliance standards (tests) that describe expected agreement between a nutrient value on a label and what is found in a sample of packages (page 68). • Presentation of the results on the label must adhere to certain rounding rules. If you start with sound, valid data for calculating nutrient values, it is more likely that the values you put on the label will meet these standards. No amount of statistical treatment at this stage can rectify weaknesses at the data gathering stage. • In the case of laborato
