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packagingstyles · 6 years

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The Problem with Food Packaging Claims and Labels

In a law class, I always thought that how phonetically close were the words “label” and “libel”, while the meanings were entirely different from each other.

However:

In the realm of packaging, both come closer and become the same. How? It is because of the way some companies manipulate the label so as to misguide the prospective customer and drive them to buy the product that they should not …

… While there are other companies that mistakenly make a wrong use of label and not only misguide the customer (although in all fairness) but also bear the loss.

The purpose of this post is to address both types of companies and to see how food packaging proves to be detrimental: either to the customer or to the manufacturers of products they buy or to the both.

The Display and Expiry Dates

Alright:

Let us first talk of a mistake bade by many companies, which is not based on the idea of false fully lure the customers into buying stuff from them, but which happens due to the lack of due diligence.

Take the example of display dates and expiry dates. On many products, the companies mention tags and labels like:

Best Before = Telling the customers that product may expire after that date!

Display Until = Telling the stores/retailers that product is best to be displayed until a certain date comes!

However, due to misprinting, overprinting or similar reasons, the customers read the “Display Until” tag, take it as a “Best Before” tag and dispose of a product which can be used perfectly.

This is kind of a mistake which is not based on a mala fide motive and which occurs just because of lack of care. Same is the case with confusing labels (most of the times).

Long List of Wrong Food Packaging Claims

Well:

What we have read before is just an example of what happens in case of no bad intention on the company’s side and where the problem arises out of the lack of due care.

However most of the times the false claims and labels are intentionally used to falsify the customers and drive them to buy the kind of products that they never wanted. Let us have a look at such claims:

Good Source of Calcium

This is what you mostly find on the label of the milk packs and other similar products. The problem is not with the claim; it is actually with highlighting or singling out one ingredient. From calcium to industrial sweetener a lot of products are used in all such products and mentioning just one ingredient leads the customers to believe that this specific milk or yogurt has an excessive amount of the mentioned ingredient or content.

Use of “Naturally Extracted”, ”Farm Fresh” or Similar Buzzwords

Some words are simply buzzwords; you cannot ignore them and from the cottage industries to Nestle, everyone is aware of their importance. Whenever you read the words like farm fresh or naturally extracted, you must either check the source of this claim or verify it (mostly they are lying) or you should go to a product with more quality and fewer claims.

How to Avoid the Confusing Labels

If you are a business and your idea of big revenue is not based on mugging people with help of false claims and labels, and you want to avoid the confusing labels that come into existence because of lack of due diligence, you can take certain steps to avoid them:

Quality Assurance

Make sure that not a single of your company’s packaging for food storage has the wrong labels. Hire quality assurance personnel if you do not have one already and let them check this.

Get Your Packaging Done by a Good Design Firm

The ‘innocent and made in all fairness labeling mistakes’ occur because of design mistakes. Perhaps you’re an in-house designer or the cheap freelancer or the design company is not that good; try to get your food packaging boxes ideas designed by a good design company and there will not be any such mistakes in future.

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