Mandatory Information to be Printed on Food Labels: Part 1
The food processing industry has grown exponentially in the last two decades. The change in lifestyle and eating habits paved a way for food product manufacturers to market foods and drinks in varied sizes of cans, boxes, bottles, jars, and bags. However, whatever way the products are packed, one thing that is common for all the food products is food labels. Do you know that sticking food labels with all the necessary information about the food is mandatory? Yes, it is. Unlike the past, people are more health-conscious and they tend to spend time reading the food labels than just blindly picking the product from the store. So, what must be the crucial information to be printed on every food label? This is exactly what is covered in the post.
Must-Have Elements of a Food Label
The following elements in a food label help the customers to better compare products/brands and choose the best and healthiest option easily and quickly.
-
- Name and Description of the Product: The front label should always carry the brand name and a short description of your product such as “Formulated Milk Drink” or “Fruit Spread” and so on. This helps the customers to pick the product they are looking for quickly from the crowd of food products.
-
- Net Weight: Do not get confused with this by the actual weight of the whole package. By net weight, it only means the actual weight or volume of the food inside.
-
- Date: This is one of the most important information that you as a customer must check before buying a product. You can see the product packaged date or baked date at the crimp of the packaging including ‘Best-Before’ or ‘Use-By’ date.
-
- Ingredient List: Do not ever overlook to glance through the ingredient list, which is listed in descending order by weight, given at the backside of the label. Ingredients such as refined grains, types of sugars such as corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, glucose, maltose, or hydrogenated oils must be listed for the customer understanding. If the list is long, you can at least choose to read the first three ingredients that make up the most to make the particular food item.
-
- Nutrition: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demands to print the nutritional value of the packaged foods and beverages on their labels. The most commonly listed items under this category include energy, amounts of fat, carbohydrates, sugars, protein, and salt.
-
- Allergy Declaration: Packaged food may contain several ingredients like fish, shellfish, eggs, milk, peanut, tree nuts, sesame, and so on, which may cause an allergic reaction to consumers. Such ingredients must be either written in bold letters together with listing other ingredients or maybe separately written in a line anywhere in the packaging.
Food labels play a crucial role as they help understand the product better, which in turn leads you towards making an informed food choice. Therefore, it must be printed with information as listed in this post. That’s not the end of the information to be printed on food labels. There are more to be added in the list, which will be discussed in the next post. Stay tuned.
Related Blog Posts:
- Mandatory Information to Be Printed on Food Labels: Part 2
- Why You Should Seriously Consider Reading The Food Labels?
