FT. WAYNE, IN – Jay Ricker, owner of Ricker’s Convenience Stores, penned an op-ed earlier this week for The Journal Gazette criticizing the FDA’s expected release next month of menu labeling requirements.

“America’s 149,000 convenience stores offer a quick, clean and friendly space for Americans to grab life’s essentials without breaking stride in their daily routine,” Ricker began. “So how much time would you be willing to spend deciphering nutrition information if it were wallpapered across the store? And how much more money would you be willing to pay to cover those costs?”

Menu labeling legislation will require foodservice retailers with 20 or more chain locations to create calorie labels for all products that they sell onsite.

But Ricker, who also served as the 2009-2012 NACS chairman, argues that while his stores sell packaged foods and freshly prepared foods, “we are not a restaurant and should not be together with other businesses in this overly broad law."

He said nutritional testing, employee training and new signage will cost stores like his “a lot of money and man-hours” that “will result in higher prices for families like yours.

Ricker also criticized the law’s effectiveness, citing a recent Gallup poll that revealed less than half of all Americans look at nutrition information when it is provided in restaurants.

“Ricker’s is proud to be made in Indiana, and we want to continue to provide jobs as well as convenience and quality service for all Hoosiers,” Ricker concluded. “While I’m eager to help drive the discussion on public health and nutrition forward, this top-down, paternalistic style of governance is not good for our business or our customers.”