WASHINGTON – Hand-me-downs might work for clothing, but they’re a terrible approach for menu-labeling regulations within the convenience store environment. 

This week NACS Chairman Brad Call of Maverik Inc. wrote in Roll Call that “hand-me-down” is the approach being used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with its proposed menu-labeling regulations required by the Affordable Care Act.

Call’s op-ed in the publication reads, in part: “The agency’s proposed rules are a reasonable, though hardly perfect, fit for the big chain restaurants. These restaurants offer simple, standardized menus at all locations and Congress’s intent was to make sure those menus provide clear, understandable nutrition information.

“But the menu labeling regulations don’t make sense at all for convenience stores, grocery stores, delivery operations and other approaches to foodservice. The FDA rules essentially define a ‘restaurant or similar retail food establishment’ as any business that devotes more than half of its floor space to consumer food sales and also offers restaurant-type items.

“That makes a convenience store a ‘restaurant’ even if 95% of its space is devoted to grocery items, and it sells only one or two prepared items at the counter. And the same rules apply to delivery-only operations — where consumers may never even walk in the door — as to full-service counterparts,” said Call.

He also points out that the regulations “are outrageously expensive for the small businesses that have to comply with them,” noting that NACS estimates an average cost of approximately $20,000 per year, per store, for the additional cost of compliance.

Call also notes that, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the FDA’s menu-labeling rules could take 14 million hours to cumulatively comply with: “one of the largest burdens of any regulation issued the year they came out.”

He also cited NACS-supported legislation, the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, that would ensure the final menu-labeling regulations set reasonable standards and treat businesses according to their primary business activities.

“The FDA got the size and style all wrong for thousands of small businesses when it tried to fit them with the same heavy-duty menu-labeling regulations as big fast-food chains,” wrote Call. “When it comes to small businesses that just want to offer the convenience of a few prepared food items, let’s hope Congress discovers the common sense to design a solution that really fits.”