Top 5 challenges in nutrition labeling

When consumers pick up their weekly groceries, they’ve come to expect a certain level of ingredient transparency for the foods they eat. Since the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) passed in 1990, nutrition labels have empowered shoppers to make smarter, healthier decisions at the store.

But as U.S. consumers get smarter, they expect more information about added sugars, particular vitamins, and calories from fat. In response, the FDA has adjusted the way food and beverage manufacturers must label their products. Similarly, in Canada, packaging has changed to keep up with new front-of-package labeling and nutrient content claims.

While these updates may benefit consumers, it makes it more difficult for manufacturers to remain compliant. To navigate these challenges, manufacturers must stay on top of current changes and use solutions designed to help them adapt—like SpecPage from Revalize.

Nutrition labeling challenges and how PLM can help

Nutrition labels require a level of accuracy that goes beyond making sure the calories are correct; food and beverage manufacturers face hurdles to ensure their labels meet requirements.

1. Complying with complex and changing regulations

A core challenge with nutrition labeling is staying up to date with a wide range of regulations. Not only do requirements vary by country, but manufacturers must keep up with frequent updates (e.g., U.S. FDA and Canadian CFIA changes) to the way they approach nutrition labeling.

How PLM Can Help: PLM software simplifies regulatory compliance by providing tools for standardizing and managing labeling workflows, such as templates. Although templates are not automatically updated, they’re pre-built to align with the latest U.S. and Canadian requirements—providing a stronger foundation for meeting compliance.

2. Ensuring data accuracy, reducing errors, and avoiding recalls

Data required for nutrition labeling, such as ingredient specification, nutrition values, and allergen information, is often spread across multiple departments or systems, which can lead to inconsistencies and errors. There can be serious consequences for manufacturers as a result, including costly recalls, tarnished reputations, and potential legal risks.

How PLM Can Help: To ensure transparency, accuracy, and consistency, PLM software acts as a single source of truth for all product data. By centralizing and standardizing product data, manufacturers can ensure their labels are accurate and up to date.

3. Keeping up with trends and shortened product lifecycles

The food and beverage industry is driven by evolving product trends, with consumers demanding immediate availability of innovative products. While producing these new formulations, nutrition labeling often becomes a bottleneck. In this accelerated timeline, creating accurate and compliant labels can be time-consuming especially when new products or variations are introduced frequently.

How PLM Can Help: Using PLM software, manufacturers can streamline the labeling process by integrating it directly into product development workflows—accelerating time-to-market. With predesigned templates and centralized data management, teams can quickly generate nutrition labels for trending products that align with regulatory compliance.

4. Meeting sustainability labeling demands (H3)

Modern consumers support brands that use sustainable packaging, such as carbon footprint, sourcing certifications (e.g., organic, fair trade), or recyclability claims. Including these details adds complexity to the labeling process. Manufacturers must validate the data and ensure it aligns with regulatory guidelines to avoid unwanted backlash from inaccurate labeling.

How PLM Can Help: PLM software helps manufacturers manage sustainability-related data alongside nutrition and regulatory information. With SpecPage, customers can also create their own custom templates to meet different data specifications as needed.

5. Handling product reformulations

Product reformulations, whether they’re to cut costs, navigate supply chain disruptions, or meet health trends, require immediate updates to nutrition labels. Ensuring updated labels are accurate, compliant, and quickly integrated into production schedules is a constant challenge.

How PLM Can Help: PLM software integrates labeling with product formulation processes. As formulations change, the system automatically recalculates nutrition values, enabling quick and seamless label updates.

While it’s clear PLM software is beneficial for overcoming common nutrition labeling challenges, your choice of PLM software will ultimately determine your success.

SpecPage Manufacturing Report 2025

Companies in the food and beverage industry use Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software to streamline processes and maximize productivity. Download our report for details!

SpecPage Manufacturing Report 2025

Companies in the Food and Beverage industry use Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software to streamline processes and maximize productivity. Download our report for details!

What to consider when choosing a PLM software for labeling

If you’re looking for PLM software to optimize your nutrition labeling process, you need to know which features will benefit your organization. PLM software designed specifically for food and beverage manufacturers, such as SpecPage PLM, offers functionalities such as:

Nutrition fact label templates: Provide your team with U.S.- and Canadian-compliant templates to minimize the time spent building nutrition labels for each product.
Integrated ingredient data: With solutions like SpecPage, hunting down ingredient data is a thing of the past. Save time and reudce errors with a centralized data system that tracks and integrates your raw ingredient data throughout the nutrition labeling process.
Allergen tracking: It’s essential to accurately list allergens for your customers' safety and your own legal protection. Solutions like SpecPage track allergen information data so you can incorporate it into your labeling process.
Workflow automation: Implement workflow automation into your labeling process so your team can create a repeatable, efficient process that reduces errors and streamlines employees' time.

Once you’ve decided which features your team could use the most, choose your PLM partner. Teaming up with an industry-specific solution like SpecPage offers your team access to these features and more.

Transform your nutrition labeling process with SpecPage PLM

If you’re ready to take your nutrition label process to the next level, consider investing in an industry-specific PLM solution like SpecPage. Designed to assist your team in every phase of the manufacturing process, SpecPage can streamline your nutrition labeling and help ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements.

To learn more about how SpecPage can optimize your process, schedule a product demonstration with one of our experts and see for yourself the benefits of this industry-leading solution.

Top 5 challenges in nutrition labeling

Nutrition labeling challenges and how PLM can help

1. Complying with complex and changing regulations

2. Ensuring data accuracy, reducing errors, and avoiding recalls

3. Keeping up with trends and shortened product lifecycles

4. Meeting sustainability labeling demands (H3)

5. Handling product reformulations

SpecPage Manufacturing Report 2025

SpecPage Manufacturing Report 2025

What to consider when choosing a PLM software for labeling

Transform your nutrition labeling process with SpecPage PLM

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