Wording On Food Labels Often Too Small: Watchdog

The Consumer Council said on Thursday the wording on almost 90 percent of food labels it examined was so small that even people with normal eyesight might require a magnifying glass.

The council examined 55 pre-packaged food items and said 48 of them had a font size smaller than that recommended by the Centre for Food Safety (CFS).

In the worst case, the nutrition label on a noodle pack had English characters that were just 0.3mm in height.

According to the CFS’s guidelines, English letters and Chinese characters on food labels should have a minimum height of 0.8mm and 1.8mm respectively.

The watchdog said some product labels also had other problems, such as blurry text and insufficient colour contrast.

It's chief executive, Gilly Wong, said traders are legally responsible to ensure the clarity of food labels.

"Prepackaged products should have a legible label for consumers to refer to... It is required that traders have to refer to the Trade Guidelines on Preparation of Legible Food Label. So it means, if the traders commit offense against the Trade Guidelines, it will possibly be seen as violating the Food and Drugs (Composition and Labelling) Regulations," Wong warned.