Coming soon to your high street – tattoos from your greengrocer!
20/10/2010

Branding has become such a sophisticated business nowadays, it’s curious to reflect that it all began by pressing a red hot iron into a hairy cowhide: a painful experience for the beast, but one that identified it as the property of the Lazy W ranch, or some such outfit, and frustrated the efforts of cattle rustlers.

I was reminded of this by the latest development in food labelling, which if its inventors have their way will soon become the UK standard for branding fruit, vegetables and other goods sold loose or otherwise unsuitable for packaging.

Using the latest laser technology, Spanish company ‘Laser Food’ is already ‘tattooing’ prices, logos and sell by dates on fruit and vegetable skins for French grocers Carrefour, and there are plans to distribute laser-labelled fruit in the UK by the end of the year. Remember those little lions they used to stamp on eggs?  Well this is the 21st century equivalent!

I have to admit I’d be glad to see the end of those annoying little sticky labels you have to dig out of fruit with your fingernails, and usually serve no useful purpose other than to tell you it’s a Granny Smith, or handpicked by a rosy cheeked English wench. (Actually, us copywriters have a lot to answer for – I was in a restaurant the other day that listed ‘hand-cut bread’ on the menu!  C’mon guys, a little hyperbole is allowed, but this sort of thing gives the profession a bad name!)

Anyway, back to the point. They tell us ‘food-engraving’ is more environmentally friendly than stick on labels that require ink, paper and glue, and I’ve no doubt that’s true. So why do I feel uneasy about the whole idea of laser labelling? It may be unfair, but lurking in the back of my mind is the thoughts of genetically modified foods and other high-tech abominations like developing square eggs or straight bananas to solve manufacturers’ packaging problems.

I mean the whole point of natural products is that they’re natural and, in an ideal world, organically grown. Do we really need a sell by date to tell us that we’re looking at a black banana, a spotted apple or a mouldy orange? I think not.

However, my ideas, as you’ll know if you follow my blog, are somewhat reactionary. When it comes to packaging I still think CD covers are an awful apology for LP sleeves.  And yes, I know there’s some of you out there who don’t even know what LP (or even CD) covers are!