"Highlighted Ingredients And Flavours" Guidelines – Closer, But Still Waiting

Bottom Line: The comment period recently closed (September 20, 2012) on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's ("CFIA") second round of consideration for its proposed Guidelines for Highlighted Ingredients and Flavours ("Guidelines"). After a decade's delay, it is hoped that final Guidelines will follow soon.

'Highlighting', of course, refers to giving prominence on a product label to certain flavours and/or ingredient(s) – i.e., "made with fruit", or "strawberry flavoured ice cream".

Highlighting could take the form of written claims, the common name declaration and/or illustrated vignettes of the flavour or ingredient. While highlighting certain ingredients can help consumers know what a product will taste like, highlighting runs the risk of being misleading as to what is actually in the product, or how much of an ingredient is present.