Esko Prepares for New Nutrition Facts Label with Software Platform Updates

GHENT, Belgium—Following a recent announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it is introducing a modernized nutrition facts label for packaged foods, Esko is actively working to integrate the new FDA guidelines into dedicated templates as part of its packaging management and prepress solutions. Esko customers will be able to automate updates to packaging and label designs for a timely and efficient transition to the new nutrition facts table format, minimizing time to market and ensuring accuracy.

Changes to the new nutrition facts label include a refreshed design, with increased type size for calories, servings per container, and serving size, as well as the addition of added sugars in grams and as percentage of daily value, and an update to many serving sizes to bring them more in line with current consumer habits.

“We understand the challenges consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand owners and their packaging suppliers face in implementing this change while ensuring complete compliance,” says Philippe Adam, VP of global marketing at Esko. “Well in advance of the 2018 deadline, Esko anticipates the massive volume of prepress work that will go into implementing the required changes. The WebCenter Content Management module will be extended to support data entry and management of nutrition facts. The Dynamic Content plugin for Adobe Illustrator will support the new nutrition table format. At the same time, we work with GS1 to ensure data can be exported to GS1 XML format and populate dynamic tables automatically in Adobe Illustrator in a completely seamless and safe manner.”

The Esko Software Platform helps CPG brand owners and packaging and label converters to reduce time to market and raise productivity, while ensuring complete compliance with FDA and other local regulations. Esko also works closely with the GS1 standards organization to drive the improvement of industry standards.