Share Your Views on the Accessibility of Food Labels

On World Braille Day (4 January 2023) Disability Equality Scotland, Oban and District Access Panel and Sight Scotland launched a campaign calling on the Scottish Government to introduce new requirements on retailers to provide braille labelling on food products. We are asking for a statutory duty to be placed on businesses and retailers to provide braille labels on food products detailing the name of the item and the use by/sell by dates. This is an essential requirement for blind and partially sighted people, which would allow visually impaired individuals to safely identify, buy and use food items in both retailers and when at home.

As part of the campaign, a Scottish Parliament petition was created which currently has a total of 1,306 signatures. In the latest response to the petition, Food Standards Scotland stated that legal food labelling requirements need to be considered on a UK-basis. However, due to work arising from the UK Government’s Retained EU Law Bill, progress on braille labelling work is unlikely to be possible in the short term.

As a campaign group, we are determined to highlight why a review of food labelling should be considered as a priority. Therefore, we have launched a short survey to gather views on the accessibility of labels.

We are also keen to hear directly from braille users. Please share your contact details if you wish to contribute to a case study to help further promote our braille labelling campaign.

Take part in our survey: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/AccessibleFoodLabelling