FIC comes at a price
On Saturday 13 December, the EU’s new Food Information to Consumers (EU FIC) Regulation came into effect, seeing wide ranging changes to the layout and information contained on food labels.
Designed to simplify and harmonise some of the information available on-pack and help consumers make the most of the information available, industry had been preparing for the change in legislation for some time. Supply chain standards and solutions organisation GS1 UK provided a series of reports this year with a snapshot progress of industry’s journey to compliance by analysing a basket of products. 20 samples were selected for the basket, with five each from the prepared ready meals, meat, confectionery and flour and bakery wares categories. For the first report in April, four of the 20 products were compliant, rising to eight in July and 11 in November.
I await news of how many of these 20 have achieved compliance now that the legislation is in force, but own label software company Trace One last week issued a warning stating that, while food retailers and manufacturers have taken great steps to address the upcoming regulation, it won’t have been enough if any of the information is incorrect, incomplete or if mistakes have been made. All in, the impact on a retailer’s bottom line from such a mistake could exceed £100,000 per affected product, claims the company.
