European consumers hungry for honest food labels

If you make and distribute food items it’s likely not just helpful and good thinking to disclose important production information on your food labels: it’s also probably what your customers are looking for. That certainly appears to be the consensus in three European nations, where a recent study commissioned by the joint group Labelling Matters reported that consumers want to know exactly what farms their food is being taken from and where.

The report took information from more than 3,000 individuals surveyed from France, the Czech Republic and the U.K., and the collected information pertains to the opinions of customers in those specific countries.

Results saw that 80 percent of shoppers in the U.K. would prefer to have an understanding about the origins of their eggs, milk, and meat, among other dairy and farm products. In addition, 83 percent expressed a desire to see this kind of farm information on product labels, and 88 percent would appreciate relevant data on food labels.  Respondents in the other two countries weren’t far off, with 80 percent of Czech and French subjects both supporting this particular idea.

The 90+ page report noted this native consumer desire and stressed the misconceptions that certain packaging can create.

“Based on packaging alone, there is genuine confusion amongst many consumers regarding the method of production used to produce meat and dairy foods, with respondents unable to consistently say how the animals used to make the five example products tested in the research had been reared,” the study’s authors wrote.

Making labels that please your company’s audience should be a high priority, not just for your sake, but for any potential consumer.