Our first post on labels mentioned the Label Lookup iPhone App, which evaluates and rates claims on product labels. It ranks products on a scale of 0 to 4 “green leaves,” 4 being the most trustworthy and reliable. Rainforest Alliance Certified gets four leaves, for example. Must be great, right? And it might be tempting to end your inquiry there… but we encourage you to dig a bit deeper.
Last week, we started a series of blogs about labels and certification by taking a look at some of the labels you might see on food products. Rather than dive into labels on other types of products, this week’s entry takes a closer look at Fair Trade labels in particular so you can get a sense of just how complex this world of labeling is.
Our first post on labels mentioned the Label Lookup iPhone App, which evaluates and rates claims on product labels. It ranks products on a scale of 0 to 4 “green leaves,” 4 being the most trustworthy and reliable. Rainforest Alliance Certified gets four leaves, for example. Must be great, right? And it might be tempting to end your inquiry there… but we encourage you to dig a bit deeper.
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Contributed by: Mary Donovan What would you say if I told you the organic apples you just bought were not really organic, or the organic milk you splurged on was really conventional milk? Your reaction might be one of disbelief, anger or exasperation – all of which are normal. Few American consumers doubt the authenticity of their food. What do we mean by “authentic?” Simply that the description matches the actual product. Shouldn’t be too much to ask, right? Yet the consumers in Germany buying Italian grains falsely marked as “organic” or the Californians buying soy milk from Dean Foods who falsely advertised as “organic” faced precisely this dilemma: the reality of food fraud. (You can read the list of common food offenders here, where we found the fun photo of Mr. Tomato.) |
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