The EU Council has ratified regulations for the digital labeling of fertilizing products in an effort to enhance label readability and simplify suppliers’ labeling obligations.

The Council says the regulation promotes the use of digital labels on EU fertilizing products while keeping physical labels wher necessary. It estimates that label simplification and streamlining could reduce annual costs by, on average, €57,000 (US$62,000) for a large company and €4,500 (US$4,900) for smaller businesses.

“The regulation updates the existing regulation about fertilizers’ labels. It promotes the use of digital labeling to reduce the costs, bureaucracy and environmental footprint for producers. Digital labels will have a lifetime of at least ten years since a product is placed on the market,” says the Council in a statement.

“The regulation also ensures the availability of information by physical means to protect vulnerable consumers or people with limited digital competencies. 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.”

Digital labels overview
Digital labels are QR or bar codes that redirect the user to a web page wher the label’s information is stored. Digital solutions aim to reduce the substantial costs of labeling while making it easy to updat its content.

The quantity and quality of the information that can be stored in a digital label are much higher compared with a physical label, which can have readability issues, especially on small packages.

The new regulation aims to combat challenges around the level of digital literacy among consumers, which varies among social groups and ages, as well as some vulnerable groups who may have difficulties understanding the functioning of digital labels or smart devices.

Next steps
In the EU, digital labeling is already used for some products containing chemicals, such as batteries, and rules for digital labeling are under consideration for other products, such as detergents, cosmetics and other chemicals.

Following the Council’s approval, the legislation is now officially adopted. After being signed by the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Council, the regulation will be published in the Official Journal of the European unio and will enter into force three days later.

The Commission’s proposal was first put forward last February. Co-legislators reached a provisional agreement in January of this year.