Bill > A4843

Introduced Session

This bill requires certain restaurant chains to provide sodium information for a food item or beverage item, including combination meals, offered for sale. While nutrition labeling is currently required on processed and packaged foods, this requirement does not apply in the same manner to retail food establishments in New Jersey. This bill defines "retail food establishment" as a restaurant that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations nationally doing business under a parent business or as part of a franchised outlet such as a fast food or chain restaurant. Currently, retail food establishments are only required to provide nutrition information when a health claim is made for a food or beverage option on the menu. For example, fast food restaurants typically make nutrition information available to consumers only upon request through brochures or on corporate Internet sites, while some other restaurants may disclose the nutrition information of their menus only via the Internet, if at all. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, about 75 percent of dietary sodium comes from eating packaged and restaurant foods, whereas only a small portion, 11 percent, comes from salt added to food when cooking or eating. Despite myriad efforts and initiatives to curb sodium consumption by public health and other organizations, the sodium content of fast food, in particular, appears to be on the rise.

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Jim Kennedy (D)*, 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee (on 05/18/2017)