The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), Silver Spring, MD, has amended its trade requirement on the labeling of caffeine-containing products. AHPA first adopted a trade requirement on labeling of caffeine-containing dietary supplements in 2005. The most significant amendment to the original policy is that it now also applies to products that are marketed as foods and that contain added caffeine.

The policy was also revised to exempt products that contain less than 5 mg of total caffeine and to allow quantitative caffeine disclosures to be made in milligrams or in cup-of-coffee equivalents.

Newly passed AHPA trade requirements are effective six months after adoption by the board, so this new trade requirement becomes effective on Sep. 6. The current policy on caffeine labeling remains in effect until that date.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), Washington, D.C., has also issued recommended guidelines for caffeine-containing dietary supplement products, expanding its self-regulatory initiatives that encourage best practices within the supplement industry. The guidelines focus on five core areas: disclosure of total caffeine content from both added and naturally occurring sources of caffeine; label advisories for conditions of use; serving size and daily intake recommendations; restraints against marketing in combination with alcohol; and implementation for product labels.

“These recommendations go beyond what is required by law, but our member companies, along with the conventional beverage industry, recognize that consumers would benefit by having information that lets them know how much caffeine is in the products they choose to take,” said Steve Mister, president and CEO, CRN.

The guidelines call on manufacturers to disclose on the product label the total amount of caffeine from both natural sources like green tea extract, coffee bean extract, guarana or yerba mate, as well as added caffeine. In addition to the recommendation for label disclosure of total caffeine content, the guidelines recommend that products with a total caffeine content of more than 100 mg per serving include label advisories for children, those sensitive to caffeine, pregnant or nursing women and those with a medical condition or taking medication. The guidelines also discourage companies from marketing or promoting the use of caffeine-containing dietary supplements in combination with alcohol, or to counter the acute or immediate effects of alcohol.