In its long-awaited final guidance issued May 25, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised against the use of the term "evaporated cane juice" on food labeling, recommending that the ingredient be listed as "sugar" instead. While the ingredient would commonly be understood to be sugar, the term "evaporated cane juice" is misleading as it is not "juice" within the meaning of the FDA's regulations. Thus, "FDA would consider a juice product sweetened with an ingredient derived from sugar cane and labeled as 100% fruit juice to be misbranded" under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, "because the '100% fruit juice' claim is false and misleading in that the product contains a non-juice sweetener in addition to the juice." The agency would not, however, object to "the addition of one or more truthful, non-misleading descriptors before the common or usual name 'sugar,'" including the use of a "coined term" to distinguish the ingredient from "other sugars on the market." View the guidance.
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