FDA is clearing out old food standards of identity. In July 2025 it moved to revoke 52 of them at once. Eleven are already gone. The other 41, covering dairy, bakery, pasta, juice, seafood and vanilla products, are still at the proposal stage, and FDA's regulatory agenda lists November 2026 as its target for finalizing both proposals.
What has changed
The 11 revoked standards were for products FDA found are no longer sold, such as artificially sweetened canned fruits, canned field corn and canned dry peas. FDA used a direct final rule and later confirmed the revocations took effect on September 22, 2025.
The same day, FDA proposed revoking 18 dairy standards and 23 standards for other foods. The dairy list includes low-sodium cheddar and colby, cold-pack cheese food with added fruits, vegetables or meats, goat's milk ice cream and mellorine. The other list includes milk bread, rolls and buns, several macaroni and noodle products, a group of canned fruit juice standards, frozen raw lightly breaded shrimp and the vanilla-vanillin standards. Comments closed on September 15, 2025. Neither proposal has been finalized yet, and a target date on the agenda is a goal, not a deadline.
The agenda also lists further proposals for canned fruits and vegetables, bakery products and cereal flours, and frozen vegetables. Separately, FDA has been updating standards it keeps. Its pasteurized orange juice rule took effect August 19, 2026, lowering the minimum Brix from 10.5 to 10 and allowing up to 15 percent mandarin-type (Citrus reticulata) juice, and a rule permitting salt substitutes in standardized foods takes effect December 14, 2026.
What it means for names and labels
Revoking a standard does not leave a product unregulated. It becomes a nonstandardized food, which means no fixed recipe, but the ordinary labeling rules still apply in full. FDA explains in the proposal that such a product may still use a name that includes the familiar name of the old standardized food, plus whatever words are needed to describe added ingredients, as long as the name is not misleading. Where a narrow standard is folded into a broader one, FDA notes that the misbranding rules may still require the same descriptive terms on the label.
In practice, revocation gives you room to reformulate. It does not give you room to call a product something it is not, and plaintiffs' lawyers will still compare your name and claims against what is in the package.
What to do now
Check whether any of your products are made under one of the 52 standards. If so, keep complying with the current standard until a final rule says otherwise. Use the time to decide whether a revocation would let you change a formula, and draft the name, ingredient list and claims you would use. If you sell under a standard FDA has flagged as outdated but that still matters to your business, watch for the final rules and the next round of proposals so you can comment.
How MDRXLaw can help
We advise food manufacturers and importers on standards of identity, product names and label claims, and we prepare comments to FDA on proposed changes. To review how these revocations affect your products, contact us at info@mdrxlaw.com or 212-668-0200.
Sources: Federal Register, Proposal To Revoke 23 Standards of Identity for Foods; FDA, Standards of Identity for Food. This alert is for general information and is not legal advice.
