Another chemical watch word: acrylamide

Making labels can be an educational experience for both your company and the consumer, but only if you treat the process as such and have the equipment to put out packaging and descriptors that allow people to feel more informed and better prepared as customers.

Last month, the FDA released a document that may only be two pages long but focuses on a carcinogenic element known as acrylamide, especially present in fried or other “plant-based” food items. It quotes FDA employee Lauren Robin, who takes pains to point out the specific conditions in which this chemical might appear.

“Generally speaking, acrylamide is more likely to accumulate when cooking is done for longer periods or at higher temperatures,” she said. While this doesn’t exclude restaurants and other locations where consumers might have food prepared for them, the implications for frozen or pre-made meals that consumers will be microwaving or cooking in their own home should also be evident.”

In addition to the advisory, the FDA statement also contains bullet note tips for how to avoid this specific kind of thing. Businesses need to know how to make labels (if they don’t already) that can get the point across in ways that get the point across and don’t garble the information from the source. And perhaps most importantly of all, the printing needs to be legible, especially with long, complicated words like “acrylamide” being used in repetition.

It’s both a design decision and a moral decision that your company can lead the way on recognizing dangers that are only now getting the attention they might need, with a color label printer leading the way.