The average consumer might read your company’s bottled water labels and come away with some questions if they don’t know much about chemistry. This can be especially confusing if your company markets its beverages with terms like “Pure” and “All-Natural”: This language can suggest that there should be only “water” on the list of ingredients on the back of the bottles. In this light, the presence of anything else seems like pollution.
However, writing for TIME magazine, Becca Stanek picks apart the meaning of the chemicals in some bottled water. Additives like magnesium sulfate and calcium chloride can sound alarming to a consumer just expecting water.
However, there’s nothing to fear, Stanek writes, because these ingredients are a) naturally occurring and b) only added to provide a slight bit of flavor, in accordance with consumer tastes.
Since misinformation can lead to poor consumer choices, your company can use industrial print solutions to keep customers informed. The Guardian recently quoted Professor Dieter Schrenk of a German University of Kaiserslautern on the way how strange flavors can be misleading, using a metallic taste as an example.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean you swallow some metal,” he said. “You can easily experience this if you take a few coins into a sweaty hand. You detect a metallic aroma but you don’t inhale metals, it’s just a reaction product between the coins and your skin.”
This could also apply to the complaints of those who think they are absorbing harmful chemicals from their bottled water, when they are in fact perfectly safe. It’s the job of the label to be informative and reduce unneeded concern.
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