THE HISTORY OF FOOD LABELS

Food labels have gone a long way since their beginnings. As a matter of fact, food labels are much related to the history of advertisement, and the point of view that companies had on the market.

It wasn’t until the last few decades that food labels began to contain more complex information. Especially due to the pressure created by consumer groups on the ingredients that each edible had.

However, there has been always a struggle between the public and private organizations on the ingredients reported by food labels. A similar thing happened with the drug industry. As in the case of food labels, they needed an adequate explanation of all the things that the product contained.

There are many examples, in the history of food labels, of this kind of occurrences. In the 1920’s the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled that those food labels that contained misleading information, would be sanctioned by the law.

This created a huge precedence since producers had to take a lot of care with their food labels. No longer could they use food labels with information that tricked the consumer; food labels with slogans such as "it also cures all kind of ailments" began to disappear.

Another important milestone in the history of food labels occurred in 1958, when the United States of America emitted a decree under which all food labels had to contain the additives used by the manufacturer

However, that doesn’t mean that food labels won’t change anymore. As a matter of fact, the Food Standards Agency of the UK is going to adopt the recommendations of a study done on food labels. That way, food labels will be easier to read by manufacturers and consumers. This information was obtained from supermarkets, public health groups, manufacturers and consumers.