Making Food Standard: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Food Standards of Identity, 1930s–1960s

Abstract

This article looks at the implementation of food standards of identity by the U.S Food and Drug Administration from the 1930s to the 1960s, a period in the FDA’s history wedged between the “era of adulteration” of the early twentieth century and the agency’s turn to “informational regulation” starting in the 1970s. The article describes the origin of food standards in the early twentieth century and outlines the political economy of government-mandated food standards in the 1930s. While consumer advocates believed government standards would be important to consumer empowerment because they would simplify choices at the grocery store, many in the food industry believed government standards would clash with private brands. The FDA faced challenges in defining what were “customary” standards for foods in an increasingly industrial food economy, and new diet-food marketing campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s ultimately led to the food standards system's undoing. The article concludes by looking at how FDA food standards came to be framed cynically, even though voluntary food standardization continued and the system of informative labeling that replaced FDA standards led to precisely the problem government standards were intended to solve.