Contact
Ólafur Reykdal
Project Manager
olafur.reykdal@matis.is
Labeling requirements for food packaging have increased a lot in recent years and there are provisions on this subject in a detailed regulation. The labeling of nutritional value can be a complex subject for those who are starting food production and marketing of the products.
In the project, instructions and a web application were prepared to calculate the nutritional value according to regulation 1294/2014 on the dissemination of information about food to consumers. The project was carried out in 2022 and ended at the beginning of 2023. It was funded by the Food Fund and was carried out in close cooperation with the Association of Small Food Producers.
A needs analysis was carried out for the project and food manufacturers were consulted, especially the Association of Small Food Manufacturers. Nutritional values for selected ingredients were listed in The Icelandic database on the chemical content of food (ÍSGEM) which is located at Matís. A new web application was prepared to facilitate the calculation of the nutritional value of food. The program retrieves data from the ÍSGEM database and offers additional data for its own raw materials. The program is available on Matís' website (Nutritional value calculated based on recipe - Matís (matis.is) ). Furthermore, a manual was written with detailed explanations for work on food labeling and use of the web application ( Labeling-food-and-using-a-web-program-Matis_Utgafa2_2023-04-11-1.pdf ). The results of the project can reduce work and costs for food manufacturers who are starting work on food labeling.