Do you know that the packaging of your dairy food serves a purpose more than simple containment? In addition to safeguarding your food from external influences and ensuring its safety, it serves as a channel of contact with customers. Read through this article to know as exactly what should the packaging of you favorite dairy product tell you about it.
Did you Know: Some packages come with “special tags” that can instantly give customers product-specific information?
For your information, good packaging doesn’t simply refer to the safe containment of the product inside with colorful wrapping. When it comes to dairy products, good packaging intends to deliver a lot of information to consumers. In other words, good packaging targets both the safety of the dairy food packed inside and safeguarding the dietary and health interests of consumers.
Suppose a good colorful and meaningful packaging of some dairy product or dairy food attracts you towards it in the supermarket or grocery store, please don’t get carried away by its look.
Ensure that you receive the following information from the package:
Product Identity: Common Name of the Dairy Product
The packaging must shout out the common name of dairy products like Paneer, Cheese, Ghee, Butter, etc., from its print clearly and visible to your eyes before you pick it up your hands. Additionally, it must provide you with the following information:
- Name and Contact Details of the manufacturer
- A descriptive name for fanciful dairy products, like chocolate milk, mango yogurt, etc.
- Batch number/lot number
Net Quantity of the Contents inside the Packaging
Either on the back face of the product package or at the edges of the front label, you will see the Net Quantity of the product. Check that the package highlights the “Net Quantity” and not the gross volume. Net Quantity indicates the accurate volume of the dairy product excluding the weight or volume of the packaging material. Therefore, you will see the label marked as “Net Weight” or “Net Volume”.
Nutritional Information
The packaging must be mentioning the nutritional information of the content of the packet. Normally, you can find it in a table form at the backside of the packet. In general, the table states the name of fields and values of the energy in kcal. Additionally, it displays the amount of nutrients in g or ml per unit weight of the product.
List of Ingredients
Your dairy product can contain more than one ingredient. In that case, it must mention the details of the other constituents in the formulation of the product. It must mention the details of the food color grades, the nature of flavors, and the types of preservatives clearly.
Storage and Consumption Details
Your dairy product packaging must include the details like the temperature and conditions of storage of dairy products. Additionally, it must depict the dates of manufacturing and expiry. In many products, you may come across “Best Before” text. This means that you can consume the product within the number of days mentioned from the date of manufacturing.
For example, if it shows “Best Before 180 Days from Packaging”, it means that you can consume the product within the 180th day from the date of manufacturing/packaging printed on the product label.
These were the details that dairy manufacturing and packaging companies must provide on their packaging as per the BIS/ISI, FSSAI, GMP, and HACCP. Therefore, companies have to abide by these rules that mandate that consumers must know about what they are eating and drinking in detail. It is your right to know them all. Don’t get misguided by any other statement.
So keep in mind to check all this information next time when you purchase your dairy product. Keep visiting our blogs to get similarly interesting updates on milk and dairy products and industry news.
