Last week I looked into the future – the near future and the somewhat more distant – and saw that your package labeling is going to change, in some cases dramatically. A Food & Drug Law Institute (FDLI) conference provided the peek into the near future. A meeting of advocates of radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging offered longer-term visions of an era of tiny on/in-package electronic chips that will broadcast volumes of processor, consumer, distribution and transaction data about products - data that simply can’t be provided by conventional labels.

The FDLI conference presented “FDA & USDA Perspectives on Labeling” and what several regulators referred to as “emerging label issues”: irradiation labeling; natural, organic, fresh and bioengineered ingredients; statements about allergens and “one of the following” ingredient listings; voluntary claims and country of origin labels. The FDA and the USDA are working cooperatively on rules governing the who, what, how, when and where of these special food labeling issues.

You might be tempted to blow off some of the rules – country of origin labeling, for instance – because they require retailers, not processors, to change labels. But, you know how that’s going to work. Retailers will require processors to provide the data. Processors will pass back the added cost of tracking and reporting, say, a meatloaf’s origins (Was the livestock born, raised and slaughtered in the US? Only if the answer to all three questions is yes can it be labeled of US origin. If the stock was born in Mexico, raised in Argentina and slaughtered in the US, labels must spell out what happened where). Retailers will pass the cost to consumers of meatloaf, produce and other foods who often care less about where their food is coming from than its rising cost.

At the RFID conference, Gillette and the Auto-ID Center at MIT said they’ve developed “smart shelves” with RFID tags that can catch shoplifters in the act. And CVS/Pharmacy revealed plans to test RFID tags on prescription bottle and vial labels. Tags will automatically nag patients (and tell their doctors) when their prescriptions aren’t picked up or are past their renewal dates.

Regulators are waiting to hear from industry on some of the labeling issues and Gillette and CVS are mostly applying their tiny tags by hand. But, before the regulatory deliberation and technology testing ends, the packaging supply chain will be challenged to warrant and automate both the product labeling and tag application processes. Get ready.

- Ben Miyares