CRN secures supplement exemption from California date-labeling requirements

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) has secured an exemption from date-labeling requirements for supplements in California, US. Following the enactment of California Assembly Bill (AB) 2779, the state expressly excludes supplements from its standardized food requirements on quality and safety dates. 

CRN cautions that, without this exemption, supplement manufacturers would have needed to comply with a labeling system designed for conventional foods, potentially requiring them to replace or modify expiration and shelf-life dating with terms such as “best if used by” and “use by.” 

“This was not simply a technical correction,” says Steve Mister, president and CEO of CRN. “Without a clear exemption, responsible supplement manufacturers faced the prospect of changing labels to comply with requirements that were written for conventional foods and were never intended for our products.”

“Those changes could have disrupted longstanding practices for communicating shelf life and potency while making the information less — not more — meaningful to consumers. CRN worked to make sure that an unintended outcome did not occur.”

Unnecessary label changes

The organization notes that date-labeling requirements for supplements would have meant unnecessary label changes and regulatory uncertainty for companies.

The requirements could also create confusion among consumers, according to CRN, as supplement expiration dates serve a different purpose than those for food products. Under federal requirements and established industry standards, these communicate information about shelf life and ingredients, rather than food-safety distinctions.

For example, CRN points to California’s Senate Agriculture Committee analysis, which recognized that supplements use different dating systems and said the exemption would provide manufacturers with regulatory certainty while avoiding consumer confusion.

According to CRN, the analysis found that dietary supplements “were not intended to be included within the scope” of the original legislation standardized date-labeling requirements.

CRN says that date-labeling requirements for supplements would have meant unnecessary label changes and regulatory uncertainty for companies.To cement the exemption, CRN says AB 2779 makes clear that a “food item for human consumption” does not include a dietary supplement, as defined under federal law.

This legislation also clarifies that supplements are not subject to bans for covered foods on terms such as “sell by” or “expires on.”

Supplement advocacy

According to CRN’s discussions with the authors of California’s original food date-labeling legislation, AB 660, it did not intend to include supplements. The organization advocated for AB 2779 to put that understanding into law.

Julia Gustafson, CRN’s VP of government relations, says that the organization maintains an aggressive state advocacy program for this reason.

“A law may be written with conventional foods in mind, but if the statutory language inadvertently captures dietary supplements, our members can suddenly face significant compliance uncertainty and unnecessary operational changes,” she says.

CRN also called for an urgency clause to ensure the clarification takes effect immediately, rather than waiting until the legislation’s ordinary effective date in January 2027.

“The urgency clause is critical because regulatory certainty delayed is regulatory certainty denied,” adds Gustafson. “Companies should not have been forced to contemplate label changes, packaging decisions, or other compliance measures for requirements that policymakers agreed were never intended to apply to dietary supplements in the first place.”

Earlier this year, CRN and the Natural Products Association countered recommendations to modernize the US regulatory framework for supplements, including premarket authorization.