Consumer awareness of complex ingredients listed on food labels

Dear Team,

Nowadays Processed, Packed and long life foods are the inevitable part of our life. How many of us are checking the ingredient list given on the packets? Even though how many of us know about the E numbers (E.g., E171 - Titanium dioxide )?  How a layman understand such things currently?

Hi,

I'm not convinced that the layman has much understanding of food labeling. My wife still struggles with comparisons and she's had me to guide her for 30 years!

The general consensus in the UK is that using E numbers to identify approved food additives is not a good idea; use the name instead. There was a lot of bad publicity about E numbers a while ago and it's now embedded into folk memory. They're almost seen as poisons and dangerous chemicals. The same is often true of artificial sweeteners (but "natural" ones are fine). It doesn't matter that they undergo a lengthy approval process, a simple campaign in a newspaper or popular website is sufficient to make them unacceptable.

Hi,

first of all we limit the use of additives as much as possible. Then we don't use E numbers on packs of nearly all our products on domestic and export markets. The knowledge of consumers is increasing and the IT becomes more and more available, even at the point of sale.

Rgds

moskito