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How Nutella plans to 'trick' you into thinking it's healthier than it is

​It's a lot of fuss over a little thing: a tablespoon, to be exact. But when the United States' Food and Drug Administration asked for the public's input on an obscure regulatory change that would cut Nutella's labelled serving size by half, it was flooded by comments - more than 650 of them.

At issue is something called the RACC, or the "reference amount customarily consumed." It's the federal guideline companies use when labelling the serving sizes for packaged foods.

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Nutella maker fights back on palm oil claims

The multibillion-dollar palm oil industry is under pressure in Europe after authorities listed the edible oil as a cancer risk, has found a vocal ally in the food sector, the maker of Nutella.

Nutella is currently classified as a dessert topping, with a RACC of two tablespoons. Its manufacturer, Ferrero, would like to see it reclassified either as a jam or in a new category all its own, which would cut the serving size (and the sugar and calorie counts) that Nutella displays on its labels.

That has attracted the ire of both health groups and Big Peanut Butter, who see Nutella as an encroaching threat. To them, the debate over Nutella's serving size isn't just an obscure regulatory question - it's an example of the junk food industry misleading consumers on nutrition.

"It's deceptive," said Lindsay Moyer, a senior nutritionist at the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, which submitted a comment opposing the serving size reduction. "Shrinking the serving size of Nutella is a marketing ploy to trick people into thinking that it has less calories than peanut butter."

In a statement to the Post, Ferrero said it was simply seeking clarity as it and other companies prepare their new Nutrition Facts labels, slated for release in 2018. "The key point is that the amount that is customarily consumed - 1 tablespoon - should determine the RACC," the firm said, referencing own consumption data it has commissioned through a third party.

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Ferrero's most recent quest to cut Nutella's serving size dates back to 2014, when the company first petitioned the FDA to either reclassify Nutella as a jam or place it in a new RACC category. In that initial petition, Ferrero's lawyers argued that Nutella is now used mostly as a spread on bread or toast, and should thus have a jam or jelly's one-tablespoon serving.

The FDA standardises serving sizes by groups of foods: all jellies have the same serving size; all butters have another. Contrary popular belief, the serving size describes how much Americans typically consume in one sitting -- not how much they actually should. It's designed to help consumers easily compare foods.

But critics of Nutella's FDA petition say the company is trying to make that more difficult - that, in fact, they're hoping to obscure the nutritional differences between Nutella and its more nutritious competitors. The Peanut Institute, an industry lobbying group, requested that the FDA classify Nutella as a nut butter, with its serving size of two tablespoons.

Meanwhile, the Specialty Food Association - which represents several almond and peanut butter producers, as well as the makers of Nutella-like coffee, cookie and chocolate spreads - requested that Nutella keep the dessert topping designation. According to Euromonitor, a market research firm, US sales of Nutella are up 39 per cent percent - from $219.2 million to $304.5 million - in the past five years. While far more nut butters are sold in the US overall, their sales only grew five per cent in that same period.

Research has found that product sales increase when manufacturers introduce smaller serving sizes, at least for some food categories.

"[If] the two products were on the same shelf but with different serving sizes, the nutrition information would give an unfair advantage to [Nutella]," wrote Philip Kafarakis, the president of the Specialty Food Association, in his comments to the FDA. "It is imperative that consumers be able to easily make comparisons of the macronutrient amounts in foods they use in similar ways."

Nutella is indeed frequently stocked with nut butters in stores, which share the two tablespoon serving size and narrowly undercut Nutella on calorie count. If Nutella's serving size changed to one tablespoon, it could advertise a mere 418 kilojoules per serving - versus roughly 786 kilojoules for two tablespoons of peanut butter, or 820 kilojoules for almond.

Unlike most peanut or almond butters, Nutella is composed largely of sugar and palm oil; hazelnuts are its distant third ingredient. Two tablespoons of Nutella have 21 grams of sugar, which is 88 per cent of the American Heart Association's daily sugar recommendation for women, and 58 per cent that for men.

Washington Post