A guide to food labelling Part 3 – Symbols referring to food safety, hygiene, comparative product tests and branded meat programs

Claudia Weiß, Karlsruhe

Consumer information on German food packages includes a great many symbols of quality, origin etc. They are intended to help consumers in making their choice, but often fail to do so because of the confusing multitude of different types of symbols. In the present third part of the contribution , results of comparative product tests, symbols referring to food safety and hygiene as well as those referring to branded meat programs are presented.

Background, significance and use of the symbols are explained and evaluated according to the judgements of consumer protectors, associations and the internet platform label-online.de. Essential evaluation criteria are the claim (of the information conveyed by the symbol), independence, the possibility of checking the compliance with criteria, and transarency (is the evalution convincing?).

Keywords: Consumer information, consumer protection, product tests, food safety, branded meat programs.

Sie finden den Artikel in deutscher Sprache in Ernährungs Umschau 07/08 ab Seite 408.