Dive Brief:

• A proposal to exempt grocery stores (and pizza delivery businesses) from upcoming FDA requirements to provide nutritional labels on all ready-to-eat foods is winning praise from industry groups such as the Food Marketing Institute and the National Grocers Association.
• Senators Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Angus King (I-Maine) have introduced legislation limiting the scope of upcoming FDA rules requiring any chain with more than 20 locations to disclose the calorie count of foods. The Senate proposal is similar to one introduced earlier in the House.
• Industry groups argue that intent of requirements set out in the Affordable Care Act was to bring labels to restaurants. The vast majority of food sold in grocery stores is already labeled in keeping with other federal requirements.

Dive Insight:

We love the nutrition labels that appear on the side of our food packages. They provide valuable information. And we're grateful that the feds require companies use them. But we have to say we never felt like that information was being withheld from us when when we assembled a lunch at our local grocer's salad bar. Nor did we ever feel that the high-school kid who makes our pizza at the delivery joint should have to calculate the caloric values of our half-pepperoni, half-mushroom, extra cheese but with a little bit less sauce than usual pie. 

That's probably why we never became government bureaucrats. We have an affection for common sense, rather than rules. In this particular case, we fully expect common sense will triumph and the bureaucrats will be required to back down -- not so much by a proposal in the Senate as by the Obama administration. It seems very unlikely those folks want to open another front in the Obamacare war..