Importance Of Food Labeling

1.1 Importance of labelling the packaged food

Food product labeling, as policy tool for ensuring, provision of nutrition and health information to consumers and as product differentiation strategy by food manufacturing companies, it has gain importance in the recent past across the world. With the invent of Biotechnology and food regulatory laws there is an increased demand for regulatory pressures directed at labelling the ingredients, processing methods, and nutritional content of foods. The labelling regulations essentially reflect response to consumer’s right to know the content and nutrition of a particular food products. The objectives of these regulations are to provide consistent, understandable and usable labels that help consumers

The food label is one of the most important and direct means of communication of product information between buyers and sellers. In the Indian context, where overweight, obesity and the blood pressures and diabetes are increasing; the effectiveness of food labels in discouraging consumption of unhealthy foods needs to be

Education level: Development of knowledge.

Food label: A panel which is found on a package of food. It contains a variety of information regarding the nutritional value of the food item.

Food and drug association (FDA): It is US based association of health and human services. This is responsible for shielding the public health through the regulation and supervision of food products, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescriptions and over the counter pharmaceuticals.

Influence: Power of making decision and authority to make choice.

Motivation: This refers to the processes by which individuals are urged to take action and occurs when a requirement is increased that the consumer wishes to satisfy.

Nutrition label: It is a label which is found on the package of the food. It provides the information about the nutrition facts of the food like calories, sugar, carbohydrates, fat, protein etc.

Nutrients: These are prerequisites that are needed by the body.

Nutrient content claim: It is a claim made on the food label of a product which describes the level of a nutrient the product contains.

Nutritional information: It is the nutritional values of a food product as determined by chemical