FOOD INDUSTRY
REGULATIONS
The food industry is heavily regulated because food quality has a direct impact on people’s lives. When it comes to distributing your food and beverage products in global markets, accurate translations of food labels, nutrition facts, and ingredient names is a must to ensure regulatory compliance. When it comes to translating ingredients, there is no margin for error. The correct translation of allergens, food intolerances, kosher and halal diets specifications, or other dietary requirements is crucial.
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TRANSCREATION (Translation + Creation)
As well as adhering to regulations, some aspects of food translation rely heavily on transcreation. The cultural and social customs of your customers, as well as language use and verbal expressions are especially important when it comes to labels, brand names, slogans and taglines and require creativity. This is a key way to communicate with consumers and conveys your image. Several large brand names such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, The American Dairy Association have experienced the side effects of poor translations - product recalls and sales losses. Low quality translations with errors and/or wrong word use can project a negative image. Consumers may perceive the goods to be of lower quality.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE LABEL ERRORS
I translate and can certify the following documents:
Errors can be misleading or omit information. 'Turkey Jerky' has been translated into French but instead of using the word for turkey in French - 'dinde' they have translated turkey into 'Turquie' the country.
Describing a wine with subtle nuances of flavour is beyond the scope of a machine translation. ‘elusive earthiness’ has been translated to ‘elusive repugnant baseness’. This error could have been picked up simply by translating the French back into English.
There are two possible translations for the French word ‘puce’. So, you have your choice of ‘honey flavoured fleas’ or ‘honey flavoured computer chips’. The error could have been picked up by doing a reverse translation of the description.
