The EU Council has decided to adopt a regulation which will see the rollout of digital labelling on fertilisers.
The new legislation promotes the use of digital labels on EU fertilising products, while also keeping physical labels where they are necessary.
The council said that it also improves the readability of labels and simplifies the labelling obligations of suppliers.
Fertilisers
The regulation updates the existing regulation about fertilisers’ labels and promotes the use of digital labelling to reduce the costs, bureaucracy, and environmental footprint for producers.
According to the council, the simplification of labelling obligations is expected to reduce annual costs by, on average, €57,000 for a large company and €4,500 for a small or medium sized firm.
When scanned by a smart phone or another device the digital labels redirect the user to a web page containing the product information.
“Digital solutions reduce substantially the cost of labelling and at the same time make it easy to update its content.
“Furthermore, the quantity and quality of the information that can be stored in a digital label are much higher compared with a physical label, whose readability can prove difficult, especially small packages.
“However, the level of digital literacy varies among social groups and ages, and some vulnerable groups may have difficulties to understand the functioning of digital labels or smart devices,” the council said.
Labelling
The council said that the regulation ensures the availability of information by physical means to “protect vulnerable consumers or people with limited digital competences”.
It states that the choice to provide a digital label lies primarily with manufacturers and importers responsible for fulfilling the labelling requirements.
Where economic operators opt for digital labelling on fertilisers, the regulation outlines they should ensure that a minimum set of key information about the agronomic efficiency and use of the product is also available on the physical label
Digital labels will also be proposed for products sold in bulk, provided that the necessary information is also displayed in physical format in a visible place at the point of sale.