They might appear on a bag of chips, a box of cereal, a package of cookies, a frozen-food carton, or even the packaging for bread and other everyday products.
You may have wondered:
Are those colors telling me something about the ingredients?continue reading …
There are plenty of viral claims online suggesting that these little colored marks contain a hidden code for consumers.
In reality, the explanation is usually much less mysterious—but also more interesting.continue reading …
These marks are generally related to the printing and packaging process, rather than serving as a secret nutritional or ingredient code.
Understanding what they are can help you avoid one of the most common mistakes people make when interpreting food packaging: assuming that every symbol or colored mark is intended as information for the consumer.
Are Those Colored Circles or Squares?
The colored marks you see on some packages are often called printer’s marks, color control patches, color bars, or registration marks, depending on their exact form and purpose.
Food packaging is frequently printed using several separate ink colors.
In conventional commercial printing, a common process uses the four basic process colors:
- Cyan
- Magenta
- Yellow
- Black
By combining different amounts of these inks, printers can reproduce a huge range of colors and images.
But printing isn’t simply a matter of putting ink on plastic, paper, or cardboard.
to make sure that the colors are being applied consistently and that different layers of the printing process line up correctly.
Why Does a Printer Need Color Control Marks?
Imagine a food package showing a photograph of strawberries.
The strawberries need to look red.