The law on food labels
The law that regulates organic and conventional food labels is not unique, it is a set of very complex laws. However, Legislative Decree 109/92 can be taken as a reference text and basic legislation regarding the labeling of food products that we find on the market. Next to this text there are specific laws concerning certain categories of foods such as chocolate, fruit juices, food supplements, jams .
If we leave these specific cases aside for a moment, in the Decree taken into consideration, in Article 2, Section 1, we read:
" The labeling, presentation and advertising of food products must not mislead the purchaser on the characteristics of the product and precisely on the nature, identity, quality, composition, quantity, durability, place of origin or of origin, on how to obtain or manufacture the product itself. "
In Comma 2, we also read that these same advertising strategies " must not be such as to induce to attribute to the product properties suitable to prevent, cure or cure human diseases or to mention such properties that it does not possess; they must also not highlight particular characteristics, when all similar food products possess the same characteristics. "
The Legislator therefore tends to look with suspicion at the ostentation of alleged food properties and to protect the citizen, putting him on guard against food passed off as miraculous.
You can learn more about the importance of organic farming legislation
Food label information
Some information must necessarily and by law be shown on the label of a conventional or organic food. These are:
- Product name
- List of ingredients
- Quantity (net weight / drained weight)
- Food expiration terms
- Manufacturer, distributor
- Production lot
- Methods of conservation and use
- Presence of allergenic substances
The ingredients must be listed in order of decreasing weight and the ingredients must also include additives, chemical substances which generally have low or no nutritional value and which are added to the product for their technological function. We are talking about dyes, preservatives, antioxidants, emulsifiers, thickeners .
For organic foods, the European regulation on organic farming provides for the use of a limited number of additives compared to those used in the conventional. The additives must be indicated with reference to the category to which they belong and their name or corresponding EEC number . An example? The name scorbic acid can also be referred to as E300 .