That's packaging, baby! And there is nothing you can do about it! Nothing!

... And let's talk about food contact labels- Editorial by Stefano Lavorini

Common sense and rationality are increasingly rare commodities in this world that now seems to live with resentment, barricaded behind an elementary intelligence that aims to make a clean sweep of reflection, analysis and knowledge, that are seen as elements that act as obstacles to change.

As Italo Calvino writes «Sometimes it seems to me that a pestilential epidemic has struck humanity in the faculty that most characterizes it, that is in the use of the word, a plague of language that manifests itself as loss of cognitive force and immediacy, as automatism that tends to level expression to the most generic, anonymous and abstract of formulas, to dilute the meanings, to blunt the points of expression, to put out all flashes produced by words in new circumstances»*.

Fortunately, things are not all like that and there still exist areas where doing and getting things done still has its importance, like that of packaging for instance, despite the fact that it is still little known and little understood by most (witness the matter of "plastic" ).
As much as saying – and it is no coincidence – Italy's set of regulations on products in contact with food is taken as a model at European level, because it is top regarding  protection of consumer safety ... and because Italy is the Country that carries out the most checks.

Nevertheless the legislation is very complex, and leaves large gray areas, for example including labels intended to be applied to products and packaging.
To clarify things, much work has been done, which continues, as demonstrated by the new Gipea Paper dedicated to food contact labels.
Italo Vailati, Deputy Director General of Assografici, spoke about this at the recently held Technical Convention of the Italian Group of Self-adhesive Labels that took place in Milan last November.

It is a sort of guide for labeling, which goes far beyond the objective of helping specific companies to plan controls, procedures and prepare the necessary documentation to meet the increasing regulatory requirements in terms of product safety, traceability and commissioning and control of the entire production process (meaning from the choice and qualification of suppliers, to transport and delivery to customers).

It goes further because it draws the attention of users and distribution to the potentially implicit, but not so evident risks in certain applications (for example, the weight/price labels for fruit and vegetables); because it reiterates the need for a dialogue with public administration and the supervisory authorities, in order to draw up a cast-iron regulatory framework; because it clearly introduces the need for label producers who want to serve the food market to make a preventive cost/benefit budget, in view of the heavy sanctions in place (to be rightly feared!).

For these reasons it has been and will continue to be discussed before starting discussions with all the subjects in the supply chain in order to reach a shared, implementable document that on the one hand considers all the legal requirements, and on the other the market ones.

In short, even in this case, it is clear that packaging does not offer convenient simplifications because – and  I return to Calvino - «From any starting point the discourse widens and includes ever broader horizons, and if it could continue to develop in every direction would come to embrace the entire universe "*.

In short, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in the movie Deadline, 1952 ... "That's packaging, baby! And there is nothing you can do about it! Nothing!".