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About 30 food companies on Wednesday announced plans to add scannable codes to their packaging that consumers could use to get information about ingredients, allergens and nutrition. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the trade group that represents major food and beverage companies, said the new code, called Smart Label, would appear on almost 30,000 products like shampoos, detergents, crackers and sodas by the end of 2017. “Smart Label is a transformative initiative,” said Pamela G. Bailey, chief executive of the association. “It will enable consumers to get easy and instantaneous access to detailed product information by scanning a bar code or doing an online search to reach the Smart Label landing page.” Ms. Bailey noted the growing consumer demand for information about food, and a number of companies including Campbell Soup and French’s have already taken steps to reformulate products to eliminate items like high fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring. The association publicized the program, which actually had its debut last week as part of an announcement from the Hershey Company that went largely unnoticed, in the face of fierce lobbying over the issue of labeling foods containing genetically engineered ingredients. Worried about a Vermont law requiring labeling of such foods that goes into effect next summer unless blocked by the courts, the food industry is working to get Congress to put language in an omnibus spending bill the industry hopes to have passed by the end of the year that would pre-empt states from passing such regulations. Advocates of so-called G.M.O., or genetically modified organism, labeling say that the grocery association’s codes are discriminatory because not all consumers have mobile phones that can read them. “It’s a technology most consumers don’t use, and a technology prone to error because, say, the QR code is too small or on a wrinkly bag that can’t easily be scanned,” said Scott Faber, executive vice president for the Environmental Working Group, one of the organizations behind the Just Label It campaign for mandatory labeling. Hershey announced the program last week in a media release about putting a QR, or quick response, code on reformulated milk chocolate Hershey’s Kisses and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars that it had introduced for the holiday season. Using the code, a pixelated square that can be scanned with a smartphone, a consumer can navigate tabs to obtain information about nutrition, ingredients, allergens and the company. There is also a tab labeled “Other information,” which takes a consumer to information about certifications for fair trade or animal welfare that the product may have. A tab labeled GMO Disclosure can be clicked to see this statement: “This product may include ingredients sourced from genetically engineered (G.E.) crops, commonly known as G.M.O.s. In some products, we’re sourcing ingredients from non-G.M.O. crops (for example cane sugar). We can’t guarantee that all ingredients are from non-G.M.O. crops.” A version of this article appears in print on December 3, 2015, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Food Company Scan Codes to Add More Product Details. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
