Digital Product Passport for food

No. The Ecodesign Regulation excludes food and feed. No delegated act will ever cover a jar of jam. What is mandatory is everything around it. That includes the food information rules since 2014 and the wine e-label since 2023. Then come the packaging regulation since August 2026 and the Deforestation Regulation from December 2026. A passport in Transpareo brings this data together in one place. The QR code on the pack leads to your page, in the reader’s language.

Since 8 December 2023 wine has carried an ingredient list and a nutrition declaration. On the label the nutrition declaration may be limited to the energy value. The full declaration and the ingredient list then sit behind an electronic reference, usually a QR code. The allergens stay on the label. The page behind it shows no advertising and collects no user data. The Commission Notice of 24 November 2023 spells out the details. Since March 2026 the Commission may set a common symbol for the reference. In Transpareo the page shows no advertising, and nobody tracks the reader in the browser.

No. Outside wine the mandatory particulars appear directly on the pack. A QR code may show additional, voluntary information. That information may not take space from the mandatory particulars. It may not mislead either. So the passport is a second surface next to the pack. What has to be printed stays printed.

Yes. If the operator named on the pack is established outside the EU, the importer is responsible. Under the Deforestation Regulation the importer is usually the first operator. The due diligence statement and the coordinates then rest with it. Both duties stay with it, even when a service provider collects the data. Settle the data delivery in the purchase contract, before the next harvest. With a supplier request in Transpareo, your suppliers fill in the details themselves.

No rule in food law requires one. Almost every food product has one anyway, because retail asks for it. With a GTIN, Transpareo turns the identifier into a GS1 Digital Link that other systems resolve too. The same code on the pack can then serve the till and the passport. Without one, Transpareo issues a unique identifier of its own. The QR code works the same either way.

Usually yes. Nutrition values shift with the harvest, origin with the supplier. A recall always concerns particular batches. In Transpareo you publish the passport per product, batch or item. A batch keeps the product data that applied when it was created. In a recall you suspend the passports of the batches concerned. You create many batches at once through the API.

It covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and the products made from them that its list names. Whoever first places them on the EU market shows that they are deforestation-free and legally produced. For that it files a due diligence statement. It includes the geolocation of all plots. The duties apply from 30 December 2026. Natural persons and micro and small enterprises follow on 30 June 2027. From 30 December 2027 soluble coffee and frozen cattle tongues join. The dates have moved twice. So read the consolidated version.

Food law knows no reading tiers like the batteries regulation. It separates what must go on the pack, what the authority may see and what you show voluntarily. In Transpareo you set for every field who may see it. Ingredients, allergens and nutrition values are visible without a login. Supplier declarations, coordinates and audit reports are seen only by the readers you admit. Coordinates of farmland are commercially sensitive. They rarely belong on a public page.

Food law sets no period for it. In practice it runs longer than the best-before date. A consumer who scans a jar in 2029 should not meet a dead link. You keep the due diligence records for five years. Ask every provider what happens to your passports after a cancellation. With Transpareo, published passports stay reachable at a permanent address. Our provider checklist names more questions.

The member states enforce the food information rules, and the fines vary widely. The Deforestation Regulation costs more. For a company the maximum fine is at least 4 per cent of its annual turnover in the EU. Confiscation of the goods and of the revenue from them comes on top. Market access often weighs more. Without a valid due diligence statement a consignment may not be placed on the market at all. For a container of cocoa that is a stopped shipment with a best-before date.