Keeping consumers safe by notifying them of potential food allergens is of vital importance, as it ensures that customers can safely enjoy your product while also developing trust in your brand. We all have a moral obligation to highlight all allergens within food products and recent sesame allergy cases have made national news. Not only does this bring bad PR to companies which have failed to meet these obligations, but in some cases there have been tragic consequences to human health.
Labels are perfectly suited to solving these issues and can be customised to suit different a wide range of applications. Keep reading to find out some tips and strategies for your food allergy labelling.
Shout About Your Key Features
If you have a product that meets special dietary requirements, make sure to shout about it! There’s often less choice for consumers who may need certain food items, such as those which are gluten free or dairy free, so use promotional stickers on the front of packaging to make sure your product gets noticed.
You might even get the interest of consumers who are curious to try something new, such as vegan or vegetarian varieties of popular foods. The Vegan Society claim that demand for meat-free food increased by 987% in 2017 so this is clearly something consumers are searching for.
Fresh Food Allergy Stickers
The UK government launched a consultation in January 2019 regarding the labelling of allergens in food that is freshly prepared in cafes or takeaway shops. At the moment, these food products are not required by law to be labelled with allergens, but several deaths from allergic reactions in recent years have prompted calls for change. Regardless of the outcome of the consultation, using allergen labels is an excellent way to help your customers, and basic pre-printed stickers are a cost effective and easy solution.
Ensure Ingredient Text Legibility
It’s important, and required by law, for text relating to ingredients, allergens and other certain marks (such as those use for products of animal origin) to be legible and a certain size. Guidance from the UK government states that the minimum ‘x-height’ must be 1.2mm, or 0.9mm for small packages, and the information should be on the same side of the packaging. Sometimes this can be a challenge when there are lots of ingredients in a product, but there are a range of fonts available that have a large x-height in proportion to the overall size. Our design team are available to help and can make adjustments to meet your requirements.
Using labels and stickers is the quick, easy and cost effective solution to ensuring suitable labelling and adequate allergy warnings. Get in touch with our team to discuss your labelling requirements.