Andy Warhol, the Pop artist who turned soup can labels into art, might have admired the work of Jerry Mande \u201978 (CAHNR). As an FDA policy analyst in the early 1990s, Mande, who majored in nutritional sciences and minored in art, played a key role creating the uber-ubiquitous \u201cNutrition Facts\u201d label.<\/p>\n
His interest in health began as a junior in 1976. He was puzzled why the FDA, fearing a cancer-causing food dye, had banned red M&Ms. \u201cI took a nutrition class to learn more about it, and it snowballed from there,\u201d says the Westport native, who is now CEO of Nourish Science, a Bethesda, Maryland, nonprofit that works to solve the nutrition crisis.<\/p>\n
Mande was a legislative aide to Sen. Al Gore in 1990 when Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act giving the FDA a comprehensive strategy on food labeling. Now all foods, with few exceptions, would carry a standard ingredients label to fight diet-related woes. While in Gore\u2019s office, Mande had helped the then-congressman enact the National Organ Transplant Act, which created a national system to fairly allocate donated organs. But it was Mande\u2019s interest in graphic design that caught the attention of former FDA commissioner David Kessler, who brought him on board. \u201cHad it not been for Jerry\u2019s efforts, we would not have the current food label,\u201d says Kessler. \u201cHe was an intellectual giant, a visionary about how the label should look.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his book \u201cA Question of Intent,\u201d Kessler writes \u201cJerry took on the food label format as his personal mission, displaying a dogged focus that sometimes infuriated his colleagues. …He was convinced existing information was being ignored by consumers for two reasons: it was confusing and hard to read, [and] Jerry reasoned we should make sure it could be read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working with the in-house art team, staffers, and social science experts who ran focus groups, Mande oversaw creation of versions of a possible label. But something was missing \u2014 pizzazz. Outside help came from designer Berkey Belser. He had created the yellow and black Energy Guide stickers for appliances in 1978 and agreed to work pro bono on the job.<\/p>\n
Soon bold face type highlighted key terms. Tooling lines of different thicknesses separated items, making them easier to focus on. Words were justified and ran with the label\u2019s margins to create more order. All punctuation was deleted, simplifying the look. Mande estimates the FDA considered three dozen preliminary versions.<\/p>\n