When you go to the grocery store, you may see people in the aisles flipping their product over and reading the food label. If that person is an FDA inspector, they may be looking at the label to make sure all labeling requirements, such as weight, are met. As a consumer, you may have a different reason for scanning the information. There are three main purposes that food labels serve, and these are the things that consumers most often look for.
List Ingredients
One of the main functions of a food label is to list the ingredients in the product. According to the U.S. FDA, food ingredients are required to be listed in the order of content and weight. For example, if you look at the ingredient label for mixed frozen vegetables, the first ingredient may be green beans. This means that green beans are the most predominant vegetable in the package. The rest of the items will be listed in descending order of content.
List Nutrition Facts
The nutrition facts area of the label contains the most information, as it lists everything from the total number of fat and calories in the product, to the contained vitamins and how they stack up in your daily recommendations. The first thing you will see under nutrition facts is the serving size, and how many servings are in the package you are buying. Next, there is a breakdown of the nutrients in one serving of the product, such as fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Beneath the nutrients, you will find a list of vitamins that are in the product, and the percentage of the recommended daily intake that one serving of the product will give you. For example, one serving of soup may note that it contains "Vitamin A - 2 percent." This means that when you eat that serving of soup, you are getting 2 percent of the recommended daily intake of that vitamin.
Identify Manufacturer
The FDA label requirements also state that labels must include the name and address of the product manufacturer, packing plant or distributor of the product. If a product is named "Krumm mayonnaise," and is packed and distributed at the Krumm plant, then all that is needed on the label is Krumm's name and address of the plant in which it was made. If Krumm mayonnaise is made by Sunshine Foods, the label must read "Manufactured by Sunshine Foods," or Krumm Mayonnaise "distributed by Sunshine Foods." In this case, the address of Sunshine Foods must be present on the label. (Krumm mayonnaise and Sunshine Foods are fictitious names for the sake of example.)
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