On 27 March, an alliance of 17 European trade associations representing food and non-food producers, retailers, large and small companies wrote to the European Commission calling for digital solutions for product information that works for all.
As acknowledged by the European Commission, the leverage of digital transformation is a key enabler for reaching the Green Deal objectives, and it can help improve the availability of product information in the EU.
Digital solutions for labelling and product information at EU level can indeed help to reduce packaging waste, offer the possibility to provide more detailed and tailored information to consumers and decrease production costs and incentivise innovation.
As not all consumers are proficient users of digital tools or may not have access to those tools in certain situations, basic product information should, of course, always remain on pack. At the same time, many consumers now expect more detailed and tailored product information, in their own language – and digital labelling can play a central role to meet these expectations.
The important role of the European Commission is to prevent the unnecessary proliferation of digital labels for different types of information in different legal texts and support the development of an integrated solution by which different information are carried into a single data carrier. However, the legislation must be future proof and should not preclude the technical nature of digital means.
In June 2019, the spirits sector committed to providing energy information on pack and ingredients and nutritional information via an e-label. 3 years later we see the result on a quickly growing number of bottles. The U-label platform which we have developed together with the wine sector makes it easy to provide such information to consumers in a marketing-free environment.
Digital labels – which can easily be scanned with a smartphone – are an obvious solution and this is why we, together with the coalition of many sectors, encourage the Commission to drive a coordinated approach to this across the EU, and include clear rules on digital labels in the upcoming revision of the Regulation on Food Information to Consumers (FIC).
