Health and safety regulations are rife in today’s society and it is becoming vital for manufacturers to include everything we need to know about their goods. Labels are something that we use every day to gather essential information on all kinds of products.
A great deal of care is taken to correctly label food and household products, so here we want to take a look at how the importance of ensuring labels on these goods are durable enough to remain readable in all kinds of conditions and environments for the life of the product.
Food Labels
Over the last few years, debates surrounding the importance of healthy eating have been stuffed down our throats – excuse the pun – over and over again. This has led many advocates of our ‘Food Conscious Britain’ to thoroughly read the labels of all kinds of food products before committing to a purchase. Thanks to food labelling legislation, food products must present the following information to the consumer before they’re considered sellable:
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The name of the food
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A ‘best before’ date or ‘use by’ date
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Quantity
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Any necessary warnings
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All ingredients
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Storage Instructions
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Instructions for use or cooking
In addition to the above, there are many more detailed labelling requirements for specific kinds of food. All of this information is essential for the consumer so they are able to make an informed decision as to whether or not to buy and consume the product. To ensure this information is always obtainable, it is important to use a label that is durable enough to withstand fading and discolouration as a result of water, extreme temperatures and unexpected spillages.
Certain foods can potentially become harmful to eat if they have been stored incorrectly, or are consumed after the ‘use by’ date, so storage instructions and best-before labelling must be clear and easy to read at all times.
Household Product Labels
Household products are used by millions of people every day. Cleaning solutions are used to leave homes and offices across the country gleaming and germ-free, but these cleaning products are potentially hazardous due to the chemicals that are contained within them. It is essential for household product manufacturers to display adequate warning information and advise the consumer what to do if the product is used incorrectly or unsafely.
Warning pictograms are used on chemical products to warn you of potential dangers. These pictograms will tell you if the product is any one of the following:
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Explosive
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Oxidising
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Highly or Extremely Flammable
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Toxic
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Harmful
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Irritant
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Corrosive
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Dangerous to the environment
These pictograms are paramount to consumer’s health and safety and it is a legal requirement for manufacturers to display this information on their product labels. Certain chemicals are likely to react with labels and potentially destroy them, resulting in the information for these products being lost, which is why it’s essential to manufacture household product labels that are high-quality, fade resistant and developed using materials that can endure all kinds of chemical reaction.
Whether used for household products or other goods such as food, clothing and medicine, labelling is extremely important. Modern day label suppliers work to ensure that all of the labels that leave their factories are high-grade, fit for purpose and contain all the information that is legally required of them. In today’s society we label absolutely everything, which of course is used to communicate product information to the buyer, but labels can also be used to heighten the product’s appeal to potential buyers.
When used in colourful and creative ways, labels can create excellent marketing opportunities for brands yet also retain their practical purpose, which is to give us all the information we need to find out whether or not the product will best suit our needs.
Tammy Wiltshire is the Marketing Manager at Labelnet who are the leading manufacturers in the self-adhesive labels industry.