FDA deregulates French dressing
The Association for Dressings and Sauces’s decades-long battle to revoke the standards for French dressing has finally come to an end, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreeing to deregulate a label the group said “restricts innovation.”
The decision from the FDA revokes the so-called “standard of identity” on the books since 1950 that dictates what ingredients manufacturers must include in order to market their product as French dressing.
The group has since 1998 sought to eliminate the standard for French dressing, arguing that the “nonstandardized pourable dressing” world had seen an explosion in products to meet consumer preferences and that French dressing “no longer serves as a benchmark for other dressings because of the wide variation in composition to meet consumer interests.”
In its final rule posted Wednesday, the FDA determined that “the standard of identity for French dressing no longer promotes honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers” while removing the term would give manufacturers “greater flexibility.”
