The EU recently put in regulations on a European level to decide the mandatory information to be on food packaging of the products. What are they? Well, here, we’ll go over the food packaging that needs to be printed, and why each must be there. 

The Physical Product Form 

This is a product specification that discusses the state of the product. For instance, if the product is frozen, powdered, or concentrated. 

Table of nutritional Information 

Another thing that needs to be on there is the nutritional information table, which indicates the amount of calories in the product, along with the nutrients that sit within this product. Calories, fats, carbs, fibers, protein, and salt also must be included. They all need to be expressed on a per 100 grams or 100 milliliters of this product or based on a specified portion. 

Nutritional tables also need to be easy to see, and usually sit on the back part of the packaging, since the front is usually used for promotional purposes. 

Vegetable Fat and Allergens 

Along with the ingredients list in a lowered weight order, there are also lists for the allergens that must be in the product. For instance, gluten, nuts, eggs, and milk are commonly added. They also may highlight each of these allergens in a different font, size, or even a color so consumers can see this and realize it contains an allergen before consuming.

They also might specify the types of oils, or vegetable fats that get used in this. For example, palm oil, olive oil, hydrogenated fats, sunflower oils, and the like usually gets added. Most of the time, vegetable oils won’t do enough. Some companies, however, do bypass this legal vacuum and didn’t specify the exact vegetable oils that were used, so it hid that there was a chance they were using cheap, or bad ingredients. For example, palm oil and rapeseed oil were two common ones, and they usually were not included. 

Size of the Font 

The characters that get used for a lot of the food information needs to minimally be 1.2 millimeters, and usually the characters get printed in a lower case. For a smaller package, minimally, it must be .9 mm. 

Date of Expiration 

You also need to include the expiration date, especially on products that are very perishable, and usually, they precede it with the words “best if used by” so that the date that’s specified there talk about the best case for the product to be used.

Some products can handle a longer period of usage, and usually, that says “best before” instead.  That means that they can have this past that use date, without endangering themselves, especially in terms of health. However, there may be small changes in the health of a person if they use this after the expiration date. 

Storage conditions and the Usage Terms 

The person also needs to indicate on tehri products the best ways to store this. For instance, if it says to stay away from heat, or in a place that’s cool and dry, they must indicate such. 

Address and Origin country 

Finally, you need to make sure that you have the address of the company, and optionally, the production plant addresses. 

If there are certain products that have specific origins for their countries, you also want to make sure that you include this. 

Finally, everything must be written in languages that people are able to understand, especially in the EU. For instance, they will make sure that you have the same packaging that’s distributed to each of the different customers in various countries too.