Nutrition in a Bottle: New TTB regulations to look out for.

The TTB has stated that it will pursue an action in 2010 to require serving facts statements on alcoholic beverage labels.

The proposed statement would include information about the serving size, the number of servings per container, and per-serving information on calories, grams of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. It would also require information about alcohol content per-serving.

Earlier discussions of the proposed rule changes were to make the serving panel optional. It would, however, be required for any beverage (or advertisement) that makes a calorie or carbohydrate representation.

Hopefully the serving panel does not become a mandatory requirement. It could have an incredible negative impact on small producers. They would have to spend additional amounts on lab fees, as well as on new labeling equipment. A mandatory serving panel could also reduce the amount of seasonal beers, wines, and spirits that many small producers offer. It would also increase the dichotomy between manufacturers that make and sell their product for on premises consumption (brewpubs), and package manufacturers, raising the barriers to entry for small package breweries and wineries.