South Korea to prioritise food safety information and visibility in new e-labelling regulations

QR code on products in supermarket

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South Korea will prioritise food safety information such as expiry dates and allergens in labelling regulations, while also mandating firms to use e-labels for non-essential information.The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has published a notification of changes to food labelling regulations, which will primarily call for companies to transfer all non-essential information from the printed label to e-labels.

“This move looks to increase consumer convenience and visibility of the important information, protect their right-to-know, alleviate costs to the industry as well as fall in line with carbon neutrality initiatives,” MFDS Minister Oh Yoo-kyung said via a formal statement.

“The space on the printed label on the food packaging should be reserved for important information such as the product name, expiration date, allergens and storage methods whereas other information should be provided as an electronic label such as a QR code.

“This means that the font of the information on printed food labels can and will be increased to improve readability from size 10 font to size 12 font for easy visibility and the convenience of consumers to check the information they need to access.

“Only the information of a few nutritional ingredients will be retained on the printed label i.e. calories, sodium, sugar and trans fats, as well as the top three ingredients based on content ratio.

“All other nutritional information and ingredients, as well as business address, container packaging material and so on should be removed from the printed label and included within the e-label for consumers to check instead.”

MFDS also highlighted that this initiative would relieve the food industry of the need to replace printed packaging or labels in the event of printing errors, which would in turn contribute to environmental protection and carbon neutrality.

The new revision is up for public comment on the MFDS website until February 13 2025, after which enforcement will take place.

QR considerationsIn order to standardise this process, MFDS has also set up a food information platform which scanning the QR codes on the food products will direct consumers to, containing useful comprehensive information.

“MFDS has started operating a real-time food information service called Food QR, where consumers can easily check food safety and health/lifestyle information by scanning the QR codes on the food products using their mobile phones,” said the ministry.

“In addition to regular text information, there are also plans to provide more diverse formats of information such as sign language videos and foreign language information moving forward.

“In addition to crucial safety information such as food labelling updates, any recall incidents, allergen warnings and the like, we will also include health information such as the ingredients used and nutritional data, as well as lifestyle information such as cooking methods and recipes.”