Accessible Food Packaging - Life or Death, Tim Dixon

As a blind person, much of the food packaging I encounter is not accessible to me. Sometimes this can mean I pick up ketchup instead of mayonnaise and get a surprise. However, I have a reaction to some sweeteners and need to check the ingredient to see if I am safe to eat the product. For some, the reaction to an allergen is a life-or-death situation,

In recent years we have seen innovations with products including NaviLens or Accessible QR codes that allow visually impaired people to scan products and access the full product details. However, this is on a small number of products right now. Roland DG and RNIB are working to help smaller suppliers make their packagine more accessible. (Read Improving Shopping for the Visually Impaired)

With the advances in AI and the addition of Be My AI to the Be My Eyes app (Read Be My Eyes App add AI Virtual Assistant using GPT 4), visually impaired people do have more options for finding out the ingredients, but with halucinations, they cannot be depended on for checking allergens. It is one thing being told that there is a cheesecake on the menu to find out it is a cheese plater and another to find out your meal had peanuts in it when you are allergic to them.

Be it the Pepsi Max bottle that you can barely see the Cherry writing because of the colour contrast or the Dark Chocolate Lindt Lindor you picked out the box because it looked the same as the Milk one. It is important to food packaging to continue to improve its accessibility, everyone will benefit from more accessible packaging.

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“Unclear packaging poses a significant danger to individuals with food allergies who are blind or partially sighted. Inadequate allergen information or difficulty in identifying allergen warnings can lead to accidental ingestion of allergens, potentially resulting in severe health consequences,” added RNIB’s Powell.

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2024/01/17/Packaging-for-blind-and-partially-sighted-fails-to-impress?cid=DM1114097&bid=301592138

Nutritional breakdown of the calories, fat, carbohydrates and protein contents of a jar of sweet pickle

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