When independent food producers have their own label printers, they also have control over the kinds of labels they make. While they need to be careful about any claims, it's important to think of different approaches to packaging. Dr. James Hamblin recently contributed a piece to the Atlantic about a different kind of food label that would give the average consumer more health information before they buy.
He proposes that food labels tell customers how much exercise they would need to burn off the calories they'd gain from eating. It's not his original idea: The concept has been championed by people like professor Sara Bleich, who believes that this would be a more pragmatic means of educating consumers.
For years, Bleich has researched the effect that knowing the "exercise cost" of a food stuff has on purchasing decisions. She says that it's more effective to tell people how much they'll need to work to "earn" the calories than how many calories they will be consuming.
"The problem with calories is that they're not very meaningful to people," she said. "The average American doesn't know much about calories, and they're not good at numeracy." As an example, she says that Americans need to find out the percentage that a McDonald's hamburger accounts for in the total recommended calorie count of a daily diet. "Most people can't do that, and they certainly can't do it quickly when they're trying to place an order."
If a food company doesn't want to commit to this kind of label system (or can't for legal reasons), they can use a color label printer to make their own unique pieces that emphasize other healthy aspects of a product.