Food labeling history

Labels have a long history. Surviving labels from the Bronze Age typically associate wines and oils with a well known producer, such as a temple or a palace.

One of the early and best known food purity labels is the German Reinheitsgebot (1516), which stipulates that beer should be brewed only from barley, hops and water.

Because they presumably carried assurances of quality and consistency in an impersonal market brand names substituted to some degree for the lack of face-face contact in modern retailing and by 1900 fables showing band names were well established in the industrialized Western nations.

In the United States, major brands dating from the late nineteenth century include those created by Joseph Campbell, H.J Heinz and P.D Amour.

Pure Food and Drug Act 1906 was introduced which prohibited misbranded and adulterated food and drinks. It marked a major step toward labeling regulation. The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 required that food labels use the standard of common name for the food. This legislation required packaging labels to list the food’s name and weight as well as some information about the company that produced the food.

Manufacturers could include any other information that they thought might persuade shoppers to buy their products.

As the world leader in the regulation of nutritional labeling United States moved from partial controls in the 1970s and 1980s on voluntary provision of nutrition labeling in the 1990s.
Food labeling history