The problems encountered by consumers when purchasing pre packaged food, such as searching for the production date with food packaging but unable to find it repeatedly, and wanting to study the ingredient list but unable to see it clearly due to the small font on the label, are expected to be solved through digital means. The National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation recently jointly issued a notice on the implementation of digital labels for pre packaged foods, clarifying the scope, application requirements, and modification requirements of digital labels for pre packaged foods. What impact do digital tags have on consumers' daily lives? In what ways will it help upgrade the food industry? The reporter conducted an interview on this matter. Cracking down on food information "hide and seek" reporters recently visited the market and found that many pre packaged foods have already used digital labels. Wang Hua, a consumer who is shopping at the Yangqiao store of Beijing Wumart Supermarket, told reporters after experiencing digital label scanning: "In the past, the characters on food packaging were dense and small, and some even had difficulty finding the production date. Now, through digital labels, important information such as ingredient lists and shelf life of products can be clearly understood. Digital labels also have voice broadcast function and large character mode, making reading more convenient." The "Announcement" clearly states that digital labels refer to food labels displayed on food packaging using information technology such as QR codes. Encourage the display of more legally identifiable food information through digital tags, such as ingredient sources, production processes, origin information, consumption methods, product traceability, food safety and nutrition, etc., and promote digital tags as a good carrier for food safety related information exchange. Zhong Kai, Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center, stated that by scanning the QR code of the digital label, consumers can understand the content of the food label on mobile devices such as smartphones. At the same time, it can achieve functions such as page enlargement, voice recognition, video explanation, and obtain information about food ingredients, instructions for use, food safety, and nutrition and health. This will effectively solve the problem of some consumers being unable to read and find food label information due to small font size. How can elderly people who are not good at using smart devices obtain information by scanning the code to view digital tags? Yu Hangyu, Deputy Director of the Standards Office of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center, stated that for information that consumers are concerned about, food labels will not be exempted or reduced. The name, ingredients, nutritional content, etc. of the food, whether or not digital labels are used, will be retained on the actual food label. In addition, simplifying information such as digital tags and producer addresses can save more space by enlarging the font size to display information that consumers are more concerned about; More space display can further enhance the clarity and convenience of food label information display. What if a company uses digital tags to increase the display content of advertisements to assist in safety supervision through the integration of multiple codes? The Announcement specifies that the content of digital labels should comply with Article 67 of the Food Safety Law and the mandatory labeling requirements for pre packaged food labels in national food safety standards; Advertising, marketing, and other information do not belong to the category of digital tags. To ensure consumer experience and easy access to digital tag information, the content indicated on the digital tag should be clear, eye-catching, and easy to read, avoiding overlap and stacking, and there should be no interfering elements such as pop ups that affect normal reading. At present, there are many two-dimensional codes on many food packages. These two-dimensional codes involve lottery, source tracing, enterprise Weibo or WeChat official account, anti-counterfeiting code, etc. The Announcement encourages the integration of digital label QR codes with other QR codes on packaging to achieve multi code integration. When multiple codes coexist, to avoid confusion, the adjacent position of the digital label QR code should be marked with words such as "digital label" for easy identification by consumers. Digital tags do not necessarily indicate all mandatory label information, such as production date, expiration date, etc., but should be consistent with the information displayed on physical tags. ”Yu Hangyu said. The Announcement clearly states that the display content of digital tags must not be tampered with. When modifying and updating the content of digital tags, elements such as the modified content, modification time, and modifier information should be recorded to ensure traceability of the information modification process. It is reported that in addition to continuously optimizing the display information of digital tags, the subsequent digital tags will be connected with online food management, smart homes, etc., constantly innovating application scenarios, and creating an ecological chain of food digital tags. Yu Hangyu stated that using digital tags as an information carrier can expand their application scenarios, such as incorporating digital tags into online food management to enhance the accuracy of food information dissemination; Linking with smart homes in daily life scenarios, after placing food in the refrigerator, the system automatically prompts the shelf life of the food through interconnectivity; wait. In order to further optimize digital label management and promote the comprehensive application of digital labels, the National Health Commission has designated 2025 as the "Food Digital Label Promotion Year". Statistics show that Shanghai, Guangdong, Shandong, Hubei, Hunan, Beijing and other provinces and cities have actively responded and carried out promotional activities; Over a thousand food products, including dairy products, grain and oil, baked goods, meat products, and beverages from some brands, have been produced and labeled with digital tags. In order to help consumers quickly find digital labels on food, the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center, in conjunction with the China Article Numbering Center, has designed a digital label exclusive logo. The logo is based on the Chinese character "food" and incorporates stroke elements of "people" and "people", highlighting the food safety concept of "people-oriented, people first". For food production enterprises, digital labels can also bring tangible benefits in achieving a two-way transition between production and consumption. Digital labels support 'multi code integration', integrating information display, product traceability and other functions, reducing the repeated investment of enterprises in different QR code designs and labeling, making food label management more efficient. Supply chain data can also be fed back to the production end, realizing dynamic optimization such as capacity adjustment and raw material traceability. At the same time, the Announcement clarifies that if food producers display the detailed address of the producer through pre packaged food digital labels, the production address can be simplified and labeled as the name of the county-level administrative region on the pre packaged food label, and indicated after the producer's name, which will further reduce the use of packaging materials and printing ink by food manufacturers, and have both environmental and economic benefits. "Wang Rang, the person in charge of the food supply chain of Qiaqia Food, a pilot enterprise for digital labels, told reporters. In addition, through the application of digital tags, more legal information that cannot be displayed due to the limited layout of physical tags can be displayed, including specific sources and production process details of ingredients, detailed recommendations for consumption methods, food safety and nutritional characteristics, and traceability information of the entire product chain. Traditional physical labels cannot be modified once printed, while digital labels display content that cannot be tampered with, but can be modified or updated according to actual situations, while ensuring traceability of the information modification process. Li Yu, Chief Engineer of the China Food Industry Association, believes that this means that food companies can further effectively save the maintenance costs of food labels and improve their management efficiency. Empowering green and low-carbon development is one of the fundamental goals of the announcement. Yu Hangyu introduced that taking beverage bottles as an example: each bottle of beverage label is calculated based on carbon emissions of 0.013 kilograms, and 10 billion bottles have approximately 130000 tons of carbon emissions. For every 10% reduction in tag information, carbon emissions equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of over 10000 households can be saved. Based on 160000 production enterprises, on average, each company can reduce costs by 10000 yuan per year, and the food industry can save 1.6 billion yuan per year. In the long run, the comprehensive implementation of digital labels is the trend. In March of this year, the new national standard for food safety provided a standardized basis for the application of digital labels in the food industry, but many food companies are still in a wait-and-see state, waiting for specific technical requirements and standards to be introduced. The issuance of this' Announcement 'has resolved the concerns of food production enterprises about uncertainty and will greatly promote the popularization of digital label technology in the industry.' Li Yu said that digital labels are an important step in the digital upgrading of the industry, and the issuance of the 'Announcement' will provide sufficient guarantees for the comprehensive application of digital labels and inject momentum into the innovative development of food production enterprises. Food production enterprises can also take digital labels as an opportunity to make efforts in the application of digital research and development design technology, so as to improve the quality and efficiency of enterprise development. The application of digital labels marks the official entry of China's pre packaged food label management into a new stage of digitization. ”Gong Guoqiang, Deputy Director of the Food Department of the National Health Commission, stated that in the future, we will continue to promote the development of food digital labels, lead the construction of international digital labels, and enhance our voice in international standard setting. (New Society)