With an updated Nutrition Facts label, the FDA settles an eternal question: Why Helvetica?

Burkey Belser, designer of the Nutrition Facts label, in an article on Quartz:

“We chose Helvetica because it was felt that all manufacturers would already own the font,” says Belser referring to the pragmatism of using pre-installed system fonts in Macintosh computers, when the design was first conceived. “[It would help in] minimizing at least to a small degree the cost of compliance; that is, they wouldn’t have to buy a new font. Simple as that.”

It’s interesting that he was barred from proposing any new designs.