Food packaging contains a wealth of information intended to help us choose our food but how many of us understand what is meant by “Assured Food Standards”, “Leaf Marque” or “Freedom Foods”?
How does a product qualify to be labelled “Organic” or “Fresh, pure and natural”? Food labelling has proliferated to such an extent that it can confuse more than inform. The activities in this resource aim to unpack and explore the issues around food labels and logos.
Children’s awareness of food labelling has increased significantly in recent years. FACE (Farming and Countryside Education) benchmarking research has shown that young children claim to recognise an average of five labels each. Fairtrade and the Soil Association logos showed the greatest increase in recognition at primary level whereas Assured Food Standards (Red Tractor) was recognised by 55% and Freedom Food by only 27%. The majority of children were unfamiliar with the Leaf Marque logo altogether. Full report is available here.
So recognition is one thing, but what do any of these logos and labels mean? Food, particularly in the supermarkets, carries an abundance of information including these logos that aim to tell the consumer something about the food they are buying in terms of how it was produced.
This resource aims to offer some practical and engaging activities to build around an enquiry-led curriculum.
