Consumers have become much more familiar with QR codes since the start of the pandemic, and there may be opportunities for specialty food makers to leverage them as marketing tools, said David Postolski, a senior partner at Gearhart Law.
Since 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required that food exporters include QR codes on their packaging that link to their Certificates of Exportability, but QR codes can be used by food companies for other functions as well. In addition, the FDA has issued guidelines about using QR codes to provide information about ingredients such as cannabidiol (CBD) and genetically modified organisms.
Postolski, a registered patent and intellectual property attorney, specializes in assisting inventors, creators, artists, startups, entrepreneurs, early-stage companies, and emerging companies with their U.S. and international IP strategy, protection, enforcement, and monetization. He recently spoke with SFA News Daily about the FDA’s QR code policies and the opportunities QR codes provide to specialty food makers, importers, and exporters.
What are QR codes, and who needs one, per the FDA rule?
The QR stands for quick response. It’s basically a piece of computer code that can be read by a cell phone or a camera. It usually takes the person to a website or some other type of information. As far as who needs one per the new FDA rule, if you are producing a food product for human consumption, and you are exporting it out of the U.S. into a foreign country, the FDA now requires that you have a QR code on your packaging, and embedded in that QR code will be a Certificate of Exportability—meaning you are legally allowed to ship that product to a foreign country.
Why else might a specialty food company want to put a QR code on its packaging?
QR codes are an amazing marketing tool. They can provide the consumer of your product with valuable information—where you source your ingredients, how your product is made, maybe take them to your website, or to a blog that you’ve posted—that kind of marketing information. It’s not required by the FDA, but that’s an excellent way that food companies are using QR codes.
How do you create a QR code?
It’s not hard. There’s an app for everything, and there’s an app for creating QR codes. Some good ones that I would recommend are Scanova or QRTiger. I think the most important thing that you need to understand when you are creating a QR code is that there are two types of QR codes. There’s one that generates just a link to a PDF, such as a menu from a restaurant, and not to the website of the restaurant itself. The other type of QR code is a product QR code, and that’s the broader one, which allows you to link to multimedia, videos, and websites, and it takes you out of the static PDF realm.
What does the FDA have to say about using QR codes to link to information about ingredients such as CBD and GMOs?
Very typical of the FDA, they put out guidelines for certain products. So if you are using CBD, or if you are using GMO ingredients, you don’t need to do anything, but the FDA is suggesting that you should have a QR code for that. That way people understand that you have this ingredient, in the case of CBD, which is a little bit controversial and give them more information to reassure them about the product. It’s not a requirement, just a guideline. But usually, these guidelines turn into some sort of regulation. So if you are selling a CBD product, or you are a company that uses GMOs, you might want to consider looking at the guidelines and adhering to those suggestions now.
What else should specialty food makers and importers be aware of when it comes to QR codes?
If you are an importer and you are bringing products into the U.S. from another country, you should check to see if your country requires a QR code, the same way that the FDA is requiring if you export. For other specialty food makers, we are living in a world of transparency, of sustainability, of environmental friendliness—people want to know where things are sourced, they want to know the ingredients, and they even want to know how you are making your product. So, I think it is important for specialty food makers and importers to hop on that trend. It’s not required now, and there are not even guidelines now, but you can show your transparency, your awareness, and that you are more environmentally friendly or that your product has a smaller carbon footprint, for example. You can market that directly on the product through a QR code that can link the consumer of your food product to specific information about how you make your product. I think that’s where we’re headed.
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