Congress petitions FDA on maple syrup regulation.

A bipartisan group of U.S. Representatives and Senators is asking the Food and Drug Administration to exempt single-ingredient honey and maple products from what they say will be a misleading disclosure.

The FDA is proposing changes to the Nutrition Facts Label, something that hasn’t been meaningfully updated in decades. The congressional members say they support the efforts to ensure the label remains scientifically valid and helpful to consumers.

Plans for the update include adding “added sugars” labeling to most products. The congressional members, however, want single-ingredient maple and honey products to be exempted from that label. They argue that the labeling would lead consumers to believe that those products have all-natural sugar, undermining decades of marketing and education and potentially having a negative impact of sales.

There are 169 maple farms in Geauga County, where 30 percent of the entire state’s syrup is produced. There are 154,000 taps on those farms, producing 35,000 gallons of syrup annually.

“Maple syrup is a tradition unlike any other in the county,” said Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Bainbridge Township, who is one of the representatives asking for the exemption. “It is what we are known for in Geauga County. It is not only our county identity, but an important part of our county heritage.”

Joyce and 20 other representatives and senators sent a letter to the FDA this month. In that letter, they wrote that an “added sugar” labeling on these products could signal to consumers that they actually contain added sweeteners like table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

The FDA’s draft guidance would allow manufacturers to add a symbol immediately after the added sugars daily value directing consumers to clarifying language elsewhere on the label. This is unlikely to reduce consumer confusion, Joyce and the other members of congress argue.

“The simplest, most common sense solution to this issue would be to exempt single ingredient maple and honey products from added sugars disclosure requirement because they do not, in fact, contain any added sugars,” they wrote.

In the House Agriculture Appropriations Bill, maple and honey are already exempted from additional disclosure.

NEWS-HERALD FILE Maple syrup and maple products fill the shelves at Richards Maple Products, Inc. in Chardon on.