On Pi Day, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it’s easing its standards on frozen cherry pies, ending a yearslong effort prompted by a decades-old industry petition that argued no other pies were subject to the same level of regulation.
The agency announced Thursday it was revoking “the standards of identity and quality” for frozen cherry pies—regulations that historically defined the identity and minimum quality requirements of frozen cherry pie by, among other things, how much of the pie’s weight is attributable to cherries and the percentage of cherries considered “blemished.”
In the FDA’s final rule, set to be officially published in the Federal Register on Friday, the agency claimed the standards “are no longer necessary to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers,” and revoking the standards would provide “greater flexibility” for frozen cherry pie makers.
The agency says frozen cherry pies alone are subject to these standards—no other frozen or non-frozen fruit pie, not even non-frozen cherry pies, are subject to similar standards—and the agency had no evidence that consumers had different expectations for frozen cherry pies than any other type of pie.
The revocation is nearly two decades in the making, prompted in part by a petition filed by the American Bakers Association, a national trade association, in 2005, with the FDA first proposing the rule change in 2020—Forbes has contacted the American Bakers Association for comment.
The Association argued at the time that fruit pies with lighter regulation have been sold in retail stores “without any evidence of public confusion,” and believed the easing of regulations could help decrease costs, increase productivity and increase competition.
“The Frozen Cherry Pie story is not the story,” the American Bakers Association wrote in a 2019 blog post, after headlines spread that the FDA was considering the rule change. Rather, the group argued, the frozen cherry pie regulations were one example of regulations the organization believes are overreaching and that disproportionately affect the food industry. Indeed, in its 2005 petition, the ABA stated it opposes “any use of food standards to establish quality characteristics of food in general” and believes food quality should be left up to manufacturers and consumers. For its part, the FDA has said it disagrees with that more general argument, even as it acknowledged the need to eliminate the frozen cherry pie standards.
The FDA said it received 60 comments on the proposed rule, with most opposing revoking the standards because of “general quality, safety, and public health concerns.” But the FDA said these concerns were made “without any supporting evidence” and maintained that revoking the standards would not lower protections for consumers. The elimination of a specific standard of identity and standard of quality doesn’t exempt manufacturers from following all other quality control regulations covering ingredient safety and truthful labeling, the agency argued.
The FDA has instituted so-called standards of identity since 1939, laying out regulations dictating the composition of certain specific foods. The standard of identity in frozen cherry pies, for instance, was finalized in 1971. But more recently, the agency has been working to update its standards of identity “with the goal of maintaining the basic nature and essential characteristics of standardized foods while permitting flexibility with respect to their composition.” In 2022, the agency similarly revoked the standard of identity for French dressings.
The FDA commemorated Pi Day as part of its announcement, celebrating March 14, the day celebrating the mathematical figure pi, which begins with the numbers 3.14—not to be confused with Pie Day, which is in January.
