TRUTH IN PRODUCT PACKAGING AND LABELING

 

TRUTH IN PRODUCT PACKAGING AND LABELING

There was a time in the recent past when the biggest challenge for marketing companies was to comply with the rules pertaining to “truth in advertising”. Nowadays however, the marketing companies a bigger challenge to comply with additional rules pertaining to “truth in packaging and labeling”. It now seems that since the new rules are perhaps too many, some marketing companies now find it easier to either ignore the rules, or to go around these instead.

One of the more common violations are the failures to indicate the countries of origin and the names of the manufactures or distributors, together with their contact details. Other than that, there are also violations pertaining to the lack of nutrition information, the lack of ingredients information, and the lack of allergens information. The latter is a matter of life and death to those who have food allergies.

I imagine that the FDA would not give license to operate (LTO) to these marketing companies if they are not compliant with the rules. Either that, or some of these marketing companies might have found ways to go around the rules. Perhaps the loophole here is that LTOs pertain to companies only, and do not pertain to individual products.

So, what should we do in order to run after these violators? It seems very clear that the lead agency should be the DTI, but I think that the other agencies that should join the task forces should be the DILG and the DOH. IKE SENERES/03-28-2024

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