FLAVORFUL STICKY NOTES
MAKE THEIR DEBUT
First Flavor and US Ink announced the debut of Taste-it Notes, a new kind of "sticky note" that newspaper publishers and printers can place on the front page of newspapers to engage readers in a never-before-offered taste sampling advertising experience.
Taste-it Notes are created using First Flavor's Peel 'n Taste edible film technology and US Ink's innovative news ink capabilities to create an interactive ad that readers can use to literally smell and taste a flavored food, beverage or other flavored product. The Taste-it Notes were designed to provide readers with an easy-to-open, tamper-evident foil pouch in a multi-layered sticky note format and brings taste sampling to a print newspaper's audience. This innovative delivery method leverages the power of print advertising and brings an interactive experience that is not possible with online, television or radio ads.
"We are extremely excited about the potential of Taste-it Notes and our Peel 'n Taste flavor strips to engage newspaper readers in flavorful advertising," said Jay Minkoff, President and CEO of First Flavor. "We believe this type of sensory experience helps companies connect to their customers in a completely new and innovative way and drives product trial -- and according to research reports conducted by our past clients, it works!"
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report, “Dietary Supplements: FDA Should Take Further Actions to Improve Oversight and Consumer Understanding.”
The report follows up on a previous GAO report from July 2000 – “Food Safety: Improvements Needed in Overseeing the Safety of Dietary Supplements and Functional Foods.” According to GAO, FDA has implemented only two of the six recommendations made in the 2000 report.
While the report noted recent progress FDA made in its regulation of dietary supplements, it found significant weaknesses remain in FDA regulation of dietary supplements and conventional foods with added dietary ingredients, specifically:
FDA’s ability to identify safety concerns is hampered by a lack of information.
- FDA may not be aware of all dietary supplement facilities that are currently in operation. (Facilities that specialize in certain products, such as herbal products, are not required to state in their FDA registrations that they are dietary supplement facilities.
- FDA does not have comprehensive information on the types and contents of dietary supplements on the market or their ingredients.
- Although companies are now required to report serious adverse events, they are not required to report mild or moderate adverse effects.
FDA dedicates relatively few resources to dietary supplement oversight and has been slow in implementing the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).
Once FDA does identify a safety concern, its ability to remove a dietary supplement from the market is limited.
FDA has taken limited steps to educate consumers about the safety, efficacy and labeling of dietary supplements, and consumer understanding about dietary supplements is limited.
The report also noted weaknesses with respect to conventional foods that contain added dietary ingredients:
FDA may not know when a company has made an unsupported or incorrect determination that an added dietary ingredient is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) until after the product has been marketed. This is because companies may “self-affirm” the GRAS status of a dietary ingredient and are not required to notify FDA of such determinations.
The boundary between dietary supplements and conventional foods with added dietary ingredients is not always clear. As a result, companies may choose whether to market a product as a dietary supplement or a conventional food, and may market a product as a dietary supplement in order to avoid the safety standard for food additives.
FDA conducts limited monitoring of conventional foods with added dietary ingredients for safety concerns, and does not track these products separately from other conventional foods.
The GAO report makes the following four recommendations for further FDA action:
To improve the information available to FDA to identify safety concerns, FDA should request authority to require dietary supplement companies to:
a. Identify themselves as dietary supplement companies in their FDA registrations and update this information annually;
b. Provide a list of all dietary supplement products they sell and copies of labels, and update this information annually;
Report all adverse events, not only serious adverse events, to FDA.
2. To better enable FDA to regulate dietary supplements that contain new dietary ingredients, FDA should issue guidance to clarify when an ingredient is considered a new dietary ingredient, the evidence needed to document the safety of new dietary ingredients, and appropriate methods for establishing ingredient identity.
3. FDA should issue guidance to industry clarifying when a product should be marketed as a dietary supplement and when it should be marketed as a conventional food containing added dietary ingredients.
4. To improve customer understanding about dietary supplements, FDA should coordinate with stakeholder groups involved in consumer outreach to identify additional mechanisms for educating consumers (e.g., FDA’s partnership with WebMD), implement those mechanisms and assess their effectiveness.
According to the report, FDA “generally agreed” with all of the GAO’s recommendations.
FDA CONFIRMS EFFECTIVE DATE
ON COLOR ADDITIVE REGULATION
