Packaging businesses are gearing up for next month's introduction of new EU regulations that require changes to the information that is displayed on food packaging.

The new EU regulation No1169/2011 comes into force on 13 December (with a second deadline of December 2016 for changes to nutritional information) and involves new requirements in terms of the amount of information and the minimum type size.

Major brands, such as Marks & Spencer, have been planning for the changes and the likely affect on packaging and label designs.

John Corrall, managing director at Industrial Inkjet Systems (IIJ), has warned that many printers and packers are effectively "in the dark" about the likely impact of the regulations. IIJ believes it could result in a requirement for previously long runs of standardised packs to be broken down into shorter runs containing the mandated information in different languages.

IIJ is the inkjet sales arm of Konica Minolta, and has been involved in a development projects with one confectionery company that looked into adding equipment to do the necessary overprinting itself, but then abandoned the idea.