#216 - Food Labeling Law 101 with Lauren Handel

22:42Daniel Scharff:be true.

22:42Lauren Handel:But in practice, like really, this is kind of what's going on. And there are certain areas where there has been a lot of litigation and these other areas that really hasn't been as much more common. You see that actually on a lot of packaging. So that hasn't been something brands have been getting sued about. And then, you know, I think brand owners probably make decisions in a lot of cases about what risk they want to take, where they want to take it, what kind of messaging they really believe in, that they think is true, you know, all those kind of things, right? So there is some kind of a judgment call there, I think, even when people go through the label review process with an attorney.

23:16Daniel Scharff:Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm glad you raised this issue because it's also, it is the difference between the advice you can get from a regulatory consultant and an attorney, right? So following the letter of the regulations, a regulatory consultant who is not an attorney can do a very good job of telling you, these are the rules, these are the ways you need to fix your label, you know, and there may be some areas where the rules are a little bit fuzzy and that requires interpretation and that's kind of stepping into practice of law area. But definitely this sort of assessment of risk, like what is the risk of noncompliance?

23:50Daniel Scharff:Where do we need to focus on making changes or are there ways that we can mitigate the risk through disclosures?

23:59Lauren Handel:There's different things you can do.

24:01Daniel Scharff:But yeah, a lot of my clients, again, they need to differentiate their products, right? This is a legitimate need. It's a highly competitive marketplace. There is a reason why their products might cost more than the commodity product. They need to explain that to consumers, and we need to find a way that they can do so in a compliant way that mitigates risk as much as possible. And so definitely I stay on top of what are these litigation trends. But it's also really important to realize that this moves. This isn't a constant target. The things that were hot litigation targets five years ago are not so much anymore.

24:39Daniel Scharff:And there's always like kind of the new thing. And so this is something that requires revisiting periodically, right? So if you get your label reviewed today, a year from now, go back and look, has anything changed? Was there a decision we made a year ago that now is much more risky?

24:56Lauren Handel:Yep. And I've seen it. I think it's just as you see a lot, like we are in the age of new brands forming and becoming very significant in the industry and then people looking heavily at what they're claiming and them getting sued. And then because that is so dynamic right now, then that means the kind of things people are getting sued for then will follow that and hit pretty hard. So I totally agree with you about just continuing to stay abreast of things. And I also really just agree about, yeah, you have regulatory consultants who I've been in this situation where you just send them the label and they come back and they give you the laundry list of the 20 things that are wrong with your label.

25:33Lauren Handel:And I remember that happened one time and I was like, what on earth? Like all this is ludicrous. Like all this stuff, what is going on? And then only when I was like, can we call and talk about this? Then they're like, oh yeah, but like those 15 things are very, very low risk. Like, well, why didn't you tell me that? And they can't really. You know, if you think about the job that they're doing, it's really not there. They're not gonna be comfortable with doing it. They're not, it's not really their place to, I would say weigh in on all of that stuff. But I would say at least for people, just understand that.

26:05Lauren Handel:Understand it's really good to get on and actually talk through stuff and really ask a lot of questions just so you have hopefully as good of an understanding as possible about what the rules are, why they're saying what they're saying, and especially just thinking about what are the options here, right? Because it's not also a regulatory consultant's job to really come up with creative options that would be the best fit for your brand that will be true for consumers as well but you know just help you with the thing that you're trying to do and and how you're trying to show up to the world so i definitely appreciate that part about the attorney knowledge being really helpful as well because you fight the fights one other plug for attorneys that whole all that

26:46Daniel Scharff:communication back and forth about weighing risks and we know this isn't compliant but we're going to do it anyway. If it's with an attorney, it's privileged and can't be discovered in litigation if it comes back to bite you, which isn't the case if it's with a regulatory consultant who's not attorney.

26:59Lauren Handel:Well, I never thought about that. Oh, my gosh. That's a very good note for everybody. So when you're having those discussions with your regulatory consultant and all of their findings, I mean, I think, you know, the important thing is to, I'd say, have that step. Okay, so let's talk about some specific claims out there. Maybe we could start first with, because there are a lot around nutrient content, like how much protein or is it low fat, that kind of stuff. Can you tell me some of the rules around that?

27:29Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So just a kind of general matter, people should be aware that if you want to make representations about the level or amount of a nutrient in a product, that's called a nutrient content claim, right? So outside the nutrition facts panel, if there is any sort of representation, whether that's using words like high or low or rich in or just saying X grams fiber, those are all considered nutrient content claims. And there are particular rules in the Code of Federal Regulations about these kinds of claims. And they are allowed only if you follow those rules, right? So you're not allowed to make up your own words, right?

28:11Daniel Scharff:So you'll see people say things like packed with. Packed with is actually an impermissible nutrient content claim because it's not defined. So you're allowed to use particular words like contains, good source, high end, rich in, excellent source. Right. Chock full of is not a permissible claim. And those, you know, low, more, and they're defined with respect to, for the most part, with respect to percent daily value, right? So a good source is between 10, 19 percent, a high-end or rich-end is 20 percent or more. So you have to meet those criteria of the definition and the rules and use the language that's permitted in the rules.

29:00Daniel Scharff:And then for certain kinds of nutrient profiles, additional disclosures may be required. So for example, if a product has above certain levels of fat or cholesterol or sodium and you make a nutrient content claim, the idea is, yeah, sure, you can call out this positive attribute, but you also need to alert consumers to the fact that the product has relatively high amounts of these quote-unquote bad nutrients by putting this disclosure next to that call out. So they're detailed rules. There are some nuances to them. They are not very user friendly to read, but it's just important to be aware that they exist.

29:45Lauren Handel:How good of a job do you think ChatGBT is doing if you're like, hey, I do have a specific question just about that protein thing. Maybe I'm not even at the point where I'm ready for a label review, but I'm just curious about what law says. I'm sure you've experimented with this if i throw into chat gpt like what are the rules about protein labeling is it going to give me a decent answer just as like a starter obviously like you know i'm not going to rely on

30:06Daniel Scharff:it for full legal advice but yeah you know i haven't experimented with myself i have had plenty of clients come to me saying yeah saying this is what chat gpt told me or that or and to have it verified. And I'd say it does a decent job. I mean, it's definitely, I've found mistakes for sure, but do not rely on him 100%. It doesn't do a good job of understanding the interactions between the rules, right? So I've had clients come to me and say, this is what Chad GPT says I can do. I said, okay, yes, you can do that. But then you also have to add this disclosure or it's certainly not going to have the big picture of, okay, yes, you can do that, but there may be a risk of misleading consumers because of the particular kind of product you have in this composition.

31:01Daniel Scharff:So, yeah. Okay.

31:02Lauren Handel:That's good to know. I mean, I like when people actually get out there. I'd love to see somebody actually really put it to the test. Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm sure there, I know there will be great tools that can do a lot of the work, which is helpful, especially when you're just kind of in the ideation and design phase, just to know the kind of lay of the land. Like, all right, I have a good understanding generally what we can do, and then we can tweak it later once we really get the full advice from somebody. By the way, I just remember you were talking about the different risks and retail buyers.

31:30Lauren Handel:You know, it's interesting, some retail buyers out there really go deep. And on these kind of areas, like i'll just yeah give props to russell from air one because i've walked booth to booth with him before at a show and oh my gosh that guy got he he knows a lot it's incredible he um just he'll like pick up a product and flip it around and just turn it back over and look at the brand and tell them the four things that's wrong with their packaging and he just did that after like four or five i was like hey man i just gotta ask you like are you are you a food scientist also or like what's your, it was really incredible because it was so impressive how he just knew so much with, I mean, there are awesome buyers out there who obviously have incredible expertise, especially in the craft of buying, but I had never quite seen anyone go that deep on labels.

32:18Lauren Handel:And yeah, I mean, for him, it turns out he just has a very deep background doing that stuff. He worked at a co-op for a long time that was, they were very, I would say, tight on looking at labels, you know, for their choppers and everything. So, I mean, yeah, it sounds like Whole Foods, you're saying is getting a lot tighter on looking at things like claims as well, which, you know, makes sense for somebody as big as they are with all of the brand reputation and, you know, diligence that they're going to do. I had not seen that from a lot of smaller retailers. Like just me personally, I had never gotten questions about stuff on a label, but anyways, I just thought that was an interesting anecdote.

32:55Lauren Handel:So good on your Russell for being able to know that much about stuff.

32:59Daniel Scharff:It's very helpful for brands because he actually would just give them stuff That was super helpful.

33:04Lauren Handel:Okay, Lauren, I think what would be cool is maybe I can just hit you with a bunch of different questions about label stuff. And let's do the rapid fire roundup on a bunch of things. And you just quickly give me the lay of the land of each ones. All right, let's do it. Here we go. All right, first, health-related benefits. So about diseases and structure, function-type claims. Okay.

33:29Daniel Scharff:So we already talked about drug claims, meaning just don't say anything about treating, mitigating, preventing disease. Disease means any not normal bodily condition. So just stay away from it. It makes your product or drug absolutely can't do it. Structure function claims are permissible. A structure function claim is a claim that a food or a supplement has an effect on a structure or function of the body. For food, that effect has to be derived from its nutritive value, meaning like its ability to sustain life, basically. So it's somewhat more limited class of structure function claims that you can make for foods as opposed to supplements.

34:14Daniel Scharff:But the basic idea, it's allowed provided you have the substantiation to back it up. And substantiation means scientific evidence, competent, reliable scientific evidence that your product delivers the benefit that you say it does. The gold standard of that would be having clinical trials for your own product.

34:36Lauren Handel:Many people don't have that super expensive.

34:40Daniel Scharff:You know, it depends on the kind of product and how it's being positioned, whether or not that will ever make sense to do. But it's not always required necessarily if in the development of the product, you are relying on really well-conducted, you know, good science. So there may be sufficient evidence out there that's been developed through clinical trials of ingredients, probably not your exact formulation, but of the key functional ingredients. And if that's good science, there's enough of it. You know, you can't cherry pick studies, say, oh, this one study showed what I wanted to, but there are 10 others that didn't find that or found something contrary.

35:24Daniel Scharff:But so looking at all of the science, is there enough evidence to support this? And then is it relevant to the product? meaning is it the same ingredient that was tested in the same form is it being consumed in the same way at comparable dosages is it going to be used in the same way is there something about the processing of the product that could negate that effect or it's being blended with other ingredients that could have an interaction that negates the effect right so all those things have to be considered and if at the end of that you come away with okay yeah we have enough evidence to support this, you can make that kind of claim.

36:05Daniel Scharff:Now, that's all supposed to be done before you make the claim. You don't submit any of that to FDA. They don't review it and say, okay, yes, we agree with you or we don't. You just do it. Now, if it's a supplement, you're supposed to give notice to FDA of any structure function claims that you're going to make.

36:21Lauren Handel:And then they

36:22Daniel Scharff:might look into it if there were some issues. But again, they're not blessing your claim ahead of time as it would be with a drum product. So that's a category that's allowed. And then, you know, there's kind of the weaker alluding to health, you know, wellness, like talking about products is basically good for you without identifying particular effects on the body where it's all looser, right? You can get to a level of vagueness in how you describe things that, I mean, it's almost like what we consider puffery, something that's not an actual statement of fact, but more of like opinion or it makes you feel good and can't be objectively proven true or false.

37:08Daniel Scharff:That is a safer territory from a legal risk perspective for that very reason. You can't really be deceiving somebody if what you're saying is an assertion of fact. So those are kind of, that's the spectrum from disease claim to fuzzy makes you feel good is better for you, that kind of stuff.

37:26Lauren Handel:I got it. Yeah. And I mean, I wish every brand could run their own studies to have that. But yeah, that stuff is expensive. There are people out there, there are companies who do it, but especially bigger companies might pay for those studies. But I mean, they definitely can run multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to be done the right way, if not more. But I know there are also people working on at least trying to make that a little bit more accessible. But at the end of the day, you still have to have a study design, you have to pay participants, you have to make sure it's done the right way, all of that stuff.

37:55Lauren Handel:I also have just heard recommendations from a couple different people of like, if you're in one of these areas and you're kind of like, you're aware that it could become a thing with somebody at some point, whether it's a retail buyer, consumer, who knows? One at least easy thing that you can do is keep a live dossier, let's say, which could just be a Google doc that you have open where you are at least pasting the evidence that you have. Like here, look, this is the research that substantiates it and you collect it over time and you have it in that place. And if something comes up, then you can refer back to that.

38:24Daniel Scharff:Yeah. Ideally and legally, you should have the evidence amassed before you make the claim, before you put it out in the world to advertise your product. So it is a very good idea to have a dossier, to have the folder where you've accumulated all of this, or even better, to have an expert do all of this, right? So as a lawyer who's not also a scientist, I can't look at my clients, the clinical studies that they've pulled together and say, okay, yes, you actually can substantiate this claim. Because I don't know enough about what makes the study reliable or not, or are the author's conclusions valid or not, right?

39:03Daniel Scharff:You need somebody who's trained in that to really do that. And then they can compile all the things for you and say, based on all of this, you can say this claim this way, but if you change the language, that would be going too far, that kind of thing. I can explain the legal theories. I can look at the evidence and say, there's no way you have enough. I'm qualified enough to say, no, I know this is not enough science. Or maybe you have enough, but go get an expert opinion.

39:30Lauren Handel:We'll be right back. Are you going to crush it on Amazon this year? It's such an important channel, but it's so hard to do alone. And most agencies are a total ripoff. We can't afford$5 ,000 a month and a commission on our sales They just don't get it. That's why I love our partners at Daybreak. They are full service, meaning they do the creative work, the listings, the logistics, and of course, all the ads, all with the most reasonable retainer out there. I work with them personally. I'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you, our community. They do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit.

40:03Lauren Handel:So if you want them to have a look, email them, startupcpg at daybreak.agency, and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.

40:14Lauren Handel:All right, let's continue down the rapid fire. Next, organic. People ask that one all the time, like, but can I, well, can I say at least that we use organic dates on the front, even though I didn't get it certified? What are all the rules here?

40:26Daniel Scharff:So unlike the labeling rules we talked about before, organic is regulated by USDA, separate part of USDA than does the meat poultry labeling. But so National Organic Program regulations spell out all the rules for organic labeling. Basic rule, other than in your ingredient list, where you may identify certified organic ingredients as organic avocado, something like that. You cannot use the word organic outside of that ingredient list. So nowhere else on your label unless you get certification for the product. So there are rules, but if it has at least 70 % organic content, you can have the product certified so that you can make a made with organic avocado oil claim, but that still requires certification.

41:18Daniel Scharff:And then there's 100 % organic or just organic, which at least 99%. So there are particular rules. Basic idea, get certification if you want to be able to use the word organic anywhere other than the ingredient list.

41:33Lauren Handel:Okay, great. Next one, natural. That's a big one because people ask that all the time. Like, no, it's a natural product, you know, but there are a lot of things that people might not consider natural.

41:44Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So natural and all natural, 100 % natural was the biggest area of food labeling litigation, initially like 10 to 15 years ago. When food labeling litigation started to become hot, it was primarily focused on natural labeling. And as a consequence of that, a lot of brands stopped saying that or found different ways to try to say the same thing. So it remains a risky area, but there are kind of different versions of it now that gain more attention. There's no definition in any law of what is natural. There is guidance from USDA and FDA about what they consider to be, you know, where they would say, no, you really shouldn't say this is natural.

42:31Daniel Scharff:It's really highly processed. If it contains artificial synthetic ingredients, if from FDA's perspective, if it contains coloring, even from a natural source, that's not considered natural under that guidance.

42:45Lauren Handel:Or vitamins. I think if you had vitamins in there, like added vitamins.

42:50Daniel Scharff:Vitamins are mostly synthetic.

42:51Lauren Handel:Right.

42:52Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So anything that's made in a lab, natural. But in the way common language uses the term natural, it could mean a lot more than that because different people can think different things. That leaves room for plaintiff lawyers to make arguments. And that's what happened. So basically, it expanded to not just what's in the product, but also how it was grown or produced. So if there was GMO ingredients in it, and it was represented as natural, that's the subject of litigation. If it has traces of pesticides, or PFAS chemicals, that's a new area, relatively new focus on PFAS chemicals and is represented as natural, that's a high litigation risk.

43:36Daniel Scharff:So it remains a significant risk, but it's not just using the word natural. Representing the product has nothing artificial. No artificial flavors or preservatives. That's another kind of, there's some nuance there about that, but that's a hot area too. Synonyms like clean, real ingredients, pure. All right. There's people try to get around it by using different language, but you have to always be thinking. And this is what I do when I'm reviewing labels is what's the overall impression that a consumer is going to take away from this messaging, right? You don't want to just focus on particular words.

44:17Daniel Scharff:It has to be kind of the whole thing altogether. And if the overall impression is this is I basically plucked this off a tree natural kind of thing. and it's got something that's synthetic or that's really highly processed in it, that's probably going to be risky, even if it came from a natural source to begin with.

44:39Lauren Handel:Not that that overall, you know, generally, yeah, it's pretty good, is going to prevent you from getting sued for a specific thing that becomes a hot button in the industry. But at least, yeah, and it's funny. I remember I heard from one lawyer, they're like, there are ways you could like, you could even actually call the brand natural, like Daniel's Naturals. Like that would actually be okay as long as it's not something that you're talking about on the packaging as like a claim about the product. So you're not nodding your head to that. But I'm like, okay. Yeah, and I notice, yeah, in a lot of packaging, like I'm holding up a syrup in front of me right now and it says, yeah, no artificial flavors, sweeteners, or synthetic colors.

45:17Lauren Handel:So, you know, they can say a bunch of those things that are true without saying no artificial ingredients, right? Right. So, yeah.

45:26Daniel Scharff:And well, but so here's the rub with that one. So it's syrup. I don't know what kind of syrup it is. But if where there has been a lot of litigation around that kind of representation is for products that have citric acid, malic acid, ascorbic acid, these acidulants that can be put into food products for various purposes. If you say it has no artificial flavors, and you may think that that is a true statement, focusing only on the flavorings that you're using. Like, I only use vanilla extract, so no artificial flavors. But it had citric acid in it. Maybe, you know, it was just to adjust the pH for shelf life purposes.

46:06Daniel Scharff:but if it's the kind of flavor that citric acid could contribute to, and vanilla was probably a bad example for this, but if it's adding to the tartness of the flavor, the plaintiff soyers have argued, it is an artificial flavor because the citric acid, although it does, citric acid does exist in nature, the vast majority of citric acid that's used in commercial production is synthetic. that's an artificial flavor. And that theory has gained enough traction to still be a pretty big litigation risk.

46:38Lauren Handel:That'll be an interesting one to watch because I know, I mean, just use of citric acid in beverage and food products has skyrocketed, like citric acid, natural flavors, and a lot of the low calorie stuff that we're seeing emerge in different categories. Okay, cool. Let's keep it going here. So what about things like vegan, vegetarian, plant-based?

47:00Daniel Scharff:Yeah, again, not defined in any rules. And so this is the general rule of what would reasonable consumers think this means? And are you complying with that understanding of the term? Right. So what are the dictionary definitions of these terms? What evidence is there of what consumers believe? I think these are ones, well, vegan and vegetarian, I think, are widely enough used and part of our language that most people have an understanding of what that means. And so, so long as from a, you know, if a claim is vegan, there should be nothing in there that has ever been derived from animals, right?

47:39Daniel Scharff:That includes honey, that includes sugar that's been processed with bone char, right? So you'll We want to be looking at flavorings too. Some flavorings are made with animal-derived ingredients. So you want to be looking at spec sheets from ingredient suppliers to make sure that they are consistent with vegan claims. Vegetarian, you know, that could include dairy or egg products. Plant-based is trickier. I think there's some disagreement about what plant-based means. I tend to think it means vegan, but apparently not everybody thinks that. So for that reason, it's a little riskier. I think the safest course is to treat it the same as vegan.

48:22Lauren Handel:Okay. Environmental benefits, sustainable, stuff like that.

48:26Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So the Federal Trade Commission, which we haven't talked about before, but the Federal Trade Commission is the agency at the federal level that has responsibility for truth in advertising laws. It has something called the Green Guides, which is all about environmental claims. And it is good to read material if that is how you intend to represent your product. They're not rules per se about particular kinds of claims, but concepts that are important. And a big one is really broad claims like sustainable or eco-friendly. It means so many things. And it's kind of like natural, but maybe even more so.

49:06Daniel Scharff:can mean so many different things to different people and can relate to so many different aspects of the supply chain and production process of a food product that it's almost impossible to substantiate all of the possible meanings of those broad claims. So if you're stepping into this territory of wanting to represent your product as sustainable, you know, you could go and do the full lifecycle study of the product and, you know, be able to support that from a seed is planted in the ground for every single ingredient all the way till it gets to consumers on the shelf, that it is sustainable. I mean, I don't know that that would actually be possible.

49:47Daniel Scharff:You have to be thinking about what do you mean by what can you actually support? And so how do you need to narrow or qualify the claim so that it is truthful in a way that you can support? And if what you mean by sustainable is the farmers that grow these main ingredients, have implemented resource conservation measures and are using less water, whatever it is, or, you know, you're actually measuring greenhouse gas emissions, whatever it is, qualify the claim, whether that's, you know, you might have a claim that says sustainable, but, you know, near that, uses less water, uses 50 % less water than comparable products, whatever it is.

50:30Daniel Scharff:narrow it in the way that you can support so that you're protected from the accusation that you're deceiving people about some other aspect of the life cycle that you didn't think about.

50:43Lauren Handel:Okay. So maybe you'll say it's somewhat similar, but like ethical sourcing type claims then, you know, fair trade.

50:49Daniel Scharff:Yeah. There are all these fuzzy words, right? So fair trade, there's a certification. There are certifications around animal welfare. We can talk about certification specifically. The benefit of a certification is there's a standard that people can look up. And so, you know, if we say this is animal welfare approved, then I can go online, I can find the standard and read it to see what does that mean about how the animals were raised. But if you don't have that, then the language, just humanely raised, ethical, fair labor standards, whatever it is, are pretty vague and subject to lots of different interpretations in ways that you might not be able to substantiate.

51:30Daniel Scharff:And so you have to be careful about that and qualify things appropriately to what you can actually support.

51:36Lauren Handel:Okay. And can you just talk about third-party certifications overall a little bit? We talked about fair trade. Yeah. I mean, do they give you some kind of protection against lawsuits if you go through the process? How do you think about them on the packaging?

51:49Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So in a sense, yes, they can give you protection in that if your only representation about, say, animal welfare is the certification. And so you put a little logo on, that's the certification mark of whatever the organization is that you're using. Then it's tied to a standard. And for the most part, that's helpful to protect against consumer confusion. It's not 100%, though, because there have been plenty of lawsuits, especially around things like animal welfare, fair trade kinds of things, where the argument by the plaintiff's lawyers has been, yeah, you got certified, but the certification is kind of bogus.

52:29Daniel Scharff:you basically worked with the certifier to come up with the certification. And this is mostly for, you know, big industry, but you sort of created the certification and, or, you know, it doesn't have very rigorous standards or the standards aren't enforced very well. And so, you know, you're trying to hide behind the certification, but really it's all not true. So, you know, that possibility, but for the most part, the certification does mitigate risk because it has a defined standard. Now, the problem is that people will sometimes go beyond that, right? You'll have the certification, but then make all kinds of other representations that go beyond what the standard even addresses, or, you know, there's no auditing of these kinds of things that people want to say about their products.

53:17Daniel Scharff:So you still need to make sure that you have substantiation for the claims that go outside the standard.

53:23Lauren Handel:Okay, gotcha. So maybe just one more question here before we wrap, which is, so we're talking a lot about on-pack stuff as well, but often this is going to set the foundation for also how you talk about the product through other mediums, whether it's your website or some ads that you're doing, you know, pictures on Instagram. Is there a difference between the stuff you're going to say in all those places? What do you need to worry about? I think that's kind of an afterthought for people, but also it's important.

53:52Daniel Scharff:Yeah. So my view is no, there's no difference. There's differences in your risks of getting caught, basically, but essentially the same rules apply everywhere. It's not literally true that the on-package regulations for nutrient content claims apply in an advertising context, but the Federal Trade Commission says it defers to FDA and basically follows the same standards. So if FDA has defined a claim and you're using it in advertising in a way that's inconsistent with that claim, then if it's deceiving to consumers, that's also a violation of advertising rules. The safest thing is to treat everything consistently across all platforms and marketing channels and just do it all the same way.

54:43Daniel Scharff:But it's also, there's a very fuzzy line these days with e-commerce between labeling on the package and advertising, right? If you're selling your product through your website, then your website is also labeling. So the rules do apply in that context. So I see it all as the same.

55:01Lauren Handel:Yeah. And I mean, in terms of like, again, just talking about the risks of maybe some of those lawyers, those very like lawsuit happy lawyers that we see out there, it seems to me like how likely are you to get on their radar in general? Well, OK, if you get a lot of press or you're, you know, they like somehow you get a lot of attention. It seems like that's when they start looking at you. And my guess is they're more likely to just look at product images that you have online. So it's good to be cognizant of what's out there. And especially if you did make updates to your packaging, is that reflected in what's online?

55:36Lauren Handel:And I think just good for people to think about. So tell me if it's fair, as we kind of wrap here, a good practice for an early stage entrepreneur who maybe doesn't even know all these rules and they're starting out is, you're going to go out there and have your dream for your product, what you want to do. I like the idea of spending a lot of time on shelf in the grocery store, looking around your category and seeing what's common in your category, especially for products that may have somewhat of a similar composition to yours, as well as looking in other categories, because you may see ways that people are making claims or talking about their product that really resonates with you.

56:11Lauren Handel:Like, yeah, I want people to feel that way about the product, and here are a lot of options out there. You can get some of those options from a regulatory person or attorney, but they may also not think of the kitchen sink and throw it all at you because, you know, it's not their product, right? So I like the idea of just getting out there and getting really familiar with all the stuff that is out there in the realm of the possible, at least, because you're going to have to make tweaks, your packaging after you talk to a consultant, for sure, almost always. And almost always after it's in market as well, you're going to find out some things you need to change.

56:42Lauren Handel:But at least, you know, a good starting point, like, great, here's my dream. Okay, what is at least the framework for stuff that's out there? Here's a bunch of inspiration that I can get. Come with something, get somebody to look at it, probably have to tweak it, get it out into market, then probably have to tweak it a little bit more later on. How does that feel to you?

56:58Daniel Scharff:I would just caution people about looking to the marketplace as evidence of what the law is. Inspiration, yes, not approval. Right, inspiration. Just know that, all right, my analogy, which is, you know, it's kind of trite, but it's true, which is you don't look at how fast other people are driving on the road to know what the speed limit is, right? Everyone has a different risk tolerance. Some people have a much bigger budget for defending lawsuits than others. And there is a lot of noncompliance out there, which is why there are so many lawsuits and threatened lawsuits, right? There's plenty of people not following the law and you have to know for yourself what your own risk tolerance is.

57:38Daniel Scharff:So yeah, get ideas by all means. Certainly know your competition and know what they're doing. And also, you may have your own claim against your competitors who are doing it wrong, who are not truly representing the attributes of their product. That's another kind of litigation is competitor litigation, which we haven't talked about. But that also exists. Just, you know, do it with some skepticism, knowing that there's a lot of noncompliance out there.

58:03Lauren Handel:I totally agree with that. And for your speeding analogy, I will also offer one back, which is a joke that I once heard, which is A guy speeding on the highway, you know, crowded day, track's going really fast, and he gets pulled over by a cop, and he's right behind a bunch of other cars going the same speed, and he gets pulled over, and he's hopping mad. He says to the officer, why'd you pull me over like everybody else going the same speed? What's the deal? And the officer says to him, you ever been fishing? Guy's like, yeah. He's like, you ever catch all the fish? Right. Right. Anyways, if you're driving the bright red Ferrari, you're getting a lot of attention.

58:42Lauren Handel:You might be a little more likely to get pulled over in that instance. But yes. Anyways, our wish for all the brands is to say things that are true about their packaging. Don't be the fish. and at least label your fish appropriately. And, you know, I just hope for everyone, they don't have to go through some of these ordeals that can really just, you know, be, I'd say they really cause a lot of anxiety, especially when you're early brand and just feel like the worst thing that's ever happened to you when you start getting these letters from people. So I hope everybody takes the appropriate precautions, launches amazing products with the great guidance that they can get.

59:17Lauren Handel:Lauren, what's a great way for people to follow up with you if they're interested to learn more?

59:22Daniel Scharff:Well, I'm in the Slack community. You can find me there. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can email me, lauren at handelfoodlaw.com. You can find my website. All those ways.

59:33Lauren Handel:All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. This was a really great one. I hope everyone got as much out of it as I did. See you all soon. Thank you, Lauren.

59:41Daniel Scharff:Thank you.

59:44Lauren Handel:All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. if you loved it, I would so appreciate it if you could leave us a review. You could do it right now. If you're an Apple podcast, you can scroll to the bottom of our Startup CPG podcast page and click on write a review. Leave your company name in there. I will try to read it out. If you're in Spotify, you can click on about and then the star rating icon. If you are a service provider that would like to appear on the Startup CPG podcast, you can email us at partnerships at startupcpg.com. Lastly, if you found yourself grooving along to the music.

1:00:18Lauren Handel:It is my band. You can visit our website and listen to more. It is superfantastics.com. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.