For the longest time, food labels—meant to inform customers—were still a bit of a mystery. Unscrupulous manufacturers could even take advantage of the ambiguity to encourage consumers to purchase food that, if transparent, wouldn’t meet their standards.

Today’s consumers, however, are better informed about ingredients and nutrition and approach their grocery shopping as “shopping cart detectives.” The goal is not only to make healthy choices, but to make informed decisions, even when buying the occasional less-than-healthy treat.

FDA label requirements are intended to help consumers in this hunt for information, but consumers can have a difficult time trusting labels (and brands) that lack transparency and try to make their foods seem like something they’re not. But clear, concise nutrition labels help consumers, meet their demand, and can set you apart as a customer-focused brand.

Realistic Serving Sizes

Clinical serving sizes—compared to packaging—may be helpful for determining nutritional content, but they don’t match consumer expectations. A small package that a consumer perceives as a single serving might contain 2, 3, or more servings. So if they miss the very important line on the label listing the number of servings, they can consume the whole package thinking that the calories, fat, sugar, etc., match the single serving amounts.

What you can do: provide nutrition facts for a realistic portion size. And when the container has multiple portions, display per-serving and per-package numbers.

Only Use the Buzzwords When They’re True

It seems everyone wants natural, organic, gluten-free, cage-free, and grass-fed foods, but many of those terms are unregulated and can be poorly defined. The more they are misused, the less trust consumers have in these buzzwords. While it’s possible to use unregulated terms like “all natural” when artificial ingredients aren’t in a product, consumers can find it misleading in foods that are also processed.

What you can do: use the words that are true of your product(s), but add detail to back up your claims and make your brand stand out.

Know the Ins and Outs of FDA Labels and Regulations

Make sure that you stay in compliance with requirements by keeping up with the latest information on the FDA website. Also review the 2016 changes to the Nutrition Facts label which were phased in over several years, with the last group of manufacturers required to comply by January 1, 2021.