The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has postponed a regulation set to begin Friday that would have required restaurants and groceries to post calorie counts on foods they sell.
The delay of the Affordable Care Act provision came after many small businesses complained that compliance would cause hardships.
"The FDA has made the right decision to delay a rule that would have essentially dictated how every food service establishment in America with more than 20 locations … writes and displays their menus," Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said.
Among those businesses are restaurants, grocery stores and movie theaters.
"HHS believes strongly in promoting sound nutrition through public health efforts. Tackling childhood obesity is one of our top three stated clinical priorities. We should do this by helping families gain the information they need to make their own choices," Price said.
"Imposing burdensome rules that leave business managers and owners worried about harsh potential penalties and less able to serve their customers is unwise and unhelpful."
A number of food chains said an exact calorie count was impossible to comply with and feared being penalized.
The American Pizza Community — represents pizza companies including Domino's, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Godfather's and Pizza Schmizza — hailed the FDA's move, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
"The previous approach threatened to impose excessive burdens on thousands of small businesses without achieving meaningful improvements in educating consumers," the group said in a statement.
"We support menu labeling and look forward to working with policy makers to implement a permanent solution that provides consumers with information and enables small business owners to comply with flexibility while continuing to thrive and create jobs."
The calorie-count mandate had also been delayed several times under the Obama administration.
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