百事、可口可乐抢跑！扫码教你看懂配料表 中国会跟进吗？

This article introduces a new QR code initiative for ingredient transparency launched by the U.S. beverage industry, as well as China's new regulations on digital food labeling. Key takeaways for general consumers:

1. Leading U.S. beverage brands including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have rolled out the "What's In My Ingredients?" lookup service. Scanning a QR code on product packaging lets users instantly access definitions and functions of over 140 ingredients, alongside public safety assessments from global regulators such as the U.S. FDA. This eliminates the need to search for unvetted, conflicting information online, helping consumers quickly understand obscure technical ingredient terms and select products that meet their needs with confidence.

2. China has designated 2025 as the national promotion year for digital food labeling, and the revised national standard *General Standard for Prepackaged Food Labeling* will go into effect in 2027. After implementation, domestic prepackaged food products will gradually roll out QR code-based detailed ingredient lookup services. In the future, consumers will no longer need to squint at small text to guess ingredients, and will be able to easily access clear, reliable ingredient information.

This article outlines current consumer trends in the food and beverage industry and directions for brands to upgrade transparency. Key insights for brand owners:

1. Consumer trends and behavior: Nearly two-thirds of consumers now say ingredients impact their purchase decisions. They actively seek out beneficial ingredients and avoid additives they dislike (such as specific colorings and sweeteners). Consumers are no longer satisfied with just reading the ingredient list on packaging, and do not trust unvetted information scattered online. They increasingly demand authoritative, neutral, easy-to-understand background information on ingredients, raising the bar for food transparency significantly.

2. Direction for brand building: Brands can follow the model adopted by leading U.S. companies, participate in industry-built shared digital ingredient infrastructure, and use a unified, authoritative ingredient knowledge base to provide consumers with clear, reliable information via QR codes. This approach not only aligns with China's new digital labeling regulations but also addresses consumer trust issues, boosts brand favorability, and helps brands gain an early competitive edge.

This article summarizes policy developments, market opportunities and risks in the food and beverage industry. Key takeaways for sellers:

1. Policy interpretation: China has officially designated 2025 as the national promotion year for digital food labeling. The revised national standard *General Standard for Prepackaged Food Labeling*, which formally incorporates digital carriers such as QR codes into the labeling system, will take effect in March 2027. The policy aims to solve consumers' common pain points of "cannot find, cannot clearly read, cannot understand" ingredient information, and sellers need to adapt to the new requirements in advance.

2. Shifting demand and opportunities: Today's consumers increasingly value their right to know about ingredients and are willing to pay a premium for transparent products. Sellers can rework product packaging for digital labeling in advance and connect to a unified, authoritative ingredient database. This will not only bring you into compliance with the new rules but also help build consumer trust through transparency and capture greater market share.

3. Risk warning: If you do not complete upgrades in advance, you may fall out of compliance after the new regulation takes effect in 2027, fail to keep up with changing consumer demand, and lose your competitive edge.

This article outlines shifting demand and directions for digital upgrade for food and beverage producers. Key insights for factories:

1. Product development and design requirements: Consumers are raising growing demands for ingredient transparency and safety, with nearly two-thirds adjusting their purchase decisions based on ingredients and actively avoiding ingredients they find unacceptable. Factories need to pay closer attention to ingredient selection during R&D and production to align with consumer demand for healthier, more transparent products.

2. Insights for digital upgrade: China's digital food labeling has moved from pilot testing to standardized nationwide promotion, with the new regulation taking full effect in 2027. Factories can plan ahead for digital packaging upgrades, reserve QR code access points, and connect to a unified, authoritative ingredient information system. This will meet both regulatory compliance requirements and consumers' right to know, while improving product competitiveness.

3. Business opportunities: Following the U.S. model, factories can participate in industry-built shared ingredient infrastructure to cut the cost of developing independent information services, access shared authoritative resources, and open up greater market opportunities.

This article summarizes industry trends, client pain points and development directions in the food transparency space. Key insights for service providers:

1. Industry trends: Food and beverage brands around the world are advancing digital upgrades for ingredient transparency. Mature projects have already launched in the U.S., Europe and South Korea. In China, digital labeling has been formally incorporated into national standards and entered the standardized promotion phase, making transparency information services for enterprises an established industry necessity with broad market potential.

2. Core client pain points: Food companies currently face three key challenges: first, physical packaging labels have limited space that cannot accommodate detailed ingredient safety assessments, allergen alerts and other additional information; second, building an independent ingredient information system is costly for individual companies and still fails to earn consumer trust; third, companies need mature solutions to meet compliance upgrade requirements ahead of the new regulation's implementation.

3. Recommended solution directions: Service providers can follow the U.S. model, partner with industry bodies and regulatory authorities to build a shared digital ingredient transparency infrastructure, develop a unified, authoritative ingredient knowledge base, and offer low-cost QR code access services for enterprises to meet the needs of all stakeholders.

This article summarizes new demands from the food industry for platforms, along with layout priorities and risk mitigation for platforms. Key insights:

1. New merchant demands: As the new digital labeling regulation takes effect and consumers raise demands for transparency, small and medium-sized brands rarely have the capacity to build an independent, authoritative ingredient information system on their own. They strongly need platforms to provide unified, compliant, low-cost digital ingredient information services to meet both regulatory and consumer requirements.

2. Strategic directions for platforms: Platforms can follow the shared infrastructure model of the U.S. beverage industry, lead collaboration with industry associations and regulatory authorities to build a unified, shared ingredient information database, and offer QR code access services for入驻 brands. This will not only attract brands prioritizing transparency upgrades but also build a differentiated competitive advantage for the platform.

3. Risk mitigation: Platforms must ensure all ingredient information is authoritative and neutral, using only publicly released content from regulatory authorities and avoiding brand-biased marketing content to earn consumer trust. Platforms should also align with the new regulation's requirements in advance to avoid compliance risks.

This article summarizes the latest industry developments in global food label transparency and outlines promising research directions. Key insights:

1. New industry developments: The global food industry is undergoing a digital transformation for ingredient transparency. In the U.S., an industry-led initiative with participation from major beverage brands has launched a shared industry-built digital ingredient transparency infrastructure. The European Union will require digital product passports for nearly all products sold in the bloc in the coming years. In China, digital labeling has been formally incorporated into national standards and entered the standardized promotion phase, making this a key new direction for food industry upgrading.

2. New business model research: Unlike the traditional model of individual enterprises building independent digital information services, the shared infrastructure model launched in the U.S. creates a unified authoritative ingredient knowledge base via industry collaboration. This drastically cuts costs for individual enterprises and is more effective at earning consumer trust, making it an entirely new industrial collaboration business model worthy of in-depth research.

3. Policy and industrial implications: After China's revised labeling standard takes effect, a key research priority for industry and policymakers will be how to facilitate industry collaboration to build a shared transparent information system, and address information asymmetry and low consumer trust. The U.S. model provides a actionable practical reference for this path.