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They say a product has the briefest time to create a positive impact on today’s shopper. Several studies show that it takes around 1.6 seconds for a consumer to decide whether to buy a product before moving on to another product, or even another category.

So with more and more food labelling legislation in the pipeline, what will be the impact on labelling design?

Blue Marlin Executive Creative Director Martin Grimer presents his view.

Food packaging is already subject to a huge amount of labelling regulation and controversy already surrounds the ‘traffic light’ system – championed by the UK’s Food Standards Agency – that highlights the fat, saturates, sugars and salt content of food using a series of different colours. Consumers are also faced with a wide range of other labels, demonstrating (for example), organic standards, local produce, air freight, farming standards, Fairtrade, LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming), and recycling instructions.

And more is on its way – proposed European regulations will require manufacturers to clearly display the energy, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates (with specific reference to sugars) and salt content per 100 ml/g or per portion of the product, all on the front of the pack. They would also have to indicate the proportion of these elements to the reference intakes (eg Recommended Daily Allowance).

The design industry is not being consulted, but surely a lack of engagement with designers is missing a trick. The creation of these mandatories is, at the core, the creation of a graphic language. This needs to have an empathy with brands and categories, and at best promote engagement beyond pure functionality. Food labelling mandatories inform better when well designed.

While a certain amount of information is important from a healthy diet perspective, from a consumer’s point of view there is certainly a danger of information overload. Not only will this potentially detract from manufacturers’ opportunities to create strong branding, it will also simply negate its own purpose as shoppers are swamped by a mass of facts and figures and they find it increasingly difficult to navigate and find exactly what they need or want to know.

If we take, as an example, our work with Arla Foods to design new packaging for a range of fresh and UHT milk, a simplified approach created significant shelf standout while helping to convey key information. In this case designs for the new range of milks were created around a central communication of the fat content of milk whilst maintaining the colour coding that shoppers use to identify whole, semi or skimmed milk.

Agencies must adopt this type of creative approach to satisfy the needs of consumers, regulatory authorities and brand owners.