Digital product labels are coming — here's what that means for you

Regulations Minister David Seymour has announced that businesses in Aotearoa New Zealand will be able to use digital product labels. That means instead of only relying on printed labels, companies could also put product information behind a QR code that you scan with your phone — and update it in real time.

The change comes from a review by the Ministry for Regulation, a government body set up to look at whether rules are working well. The review began in August 2025 and its plan was published in October that year. Cabinet has now agreed to go ahead with a focused set of changes, including allowing digital labelling and strengthening food and beverage labelling (Ministry for Regulation).

Seymour said digital labels would lower costs and save the space taken up by printed labels. He said digital labels would not replace physical ones — businesses would just get the option to use them (RNZ). A national standard for digital labelling is being developed and is expected to generate $111 million over 10 years.

Labelling for over-the-counter medicines — the kind you buy at a pharmacy without a prescription — will be brought into line with Australia's rules. But Seymour said food labelling changes would move more slowly. That is because New Zealand and Australia share a food standards body called Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), so food labelling changes have to go through a joint process rather than being something New Zealand can change on its own.

The Government had already signalled this direction. In March 2026 it announced it would go ahead with a digital labelling trial (Beehive). Before that, the Ministry for Primary Industries had proposed a limited trial of digital labelling on certain imported food products, where consumers would still get all the required information through a digital label (MPI).

Product labels list things like ingredients, expiry dates and safety warnings. They are essential for keeping people safe and informed, according to the Ministry for Regulation (Ministry for Regulation). The shift to digital labelling is about giving businesses more flexibility in how that information reaches you.

Consumer NZ has warned that QR codes could be unfair to people who do not have a smartphone or internet access, because they would not be able to get the label information (RNZ). If important safety or allergy information is behind a scanned code, people without the right device lose a way to see it that they currently have on the pack itself.

Seymour said decisions on the rest of the product labelling review were still to come. The Cabinet package is only part of the review's findings, not a full response. That leaves open how far digital labelling will extend beyond medicines and the food products covered by the shared FSANZ process.

The broader context here is that the Ministry for Regulation was set up to review and simplify government rules, and its reviews feed directly into Cabinet decisions. The product labelling review went from its starting plan to Cabinet agreement in about 11 months, which is relatively quick and reflects the narrow scope of the changes agreed so far. The $111 million figure is an expected benefit over 10 years, not a cost — it reflects the savings the government expects from businesses adopting digital labels.

What will matter is how fast the national standard is finalised and how the physical-label requirement works alongside the digital option. Consumer NZ's concern about access is the sharpest tension in the package: the government has kept physical labels mandatory, which helps, but how much digital labels add to rather than replace on-pack information will depend on the standard's detail. For food manufacturers, the shared FSANZ process means the fastest changes will apply to non-food products and over-the-counter medicines, not to food and beverage labels where changes are most visible to shoppers.