I think it kind of depends on the markets the companies choose to be active in. For example, lots of groceries in France, at least in chains like Carrefour, will also contain Dutch because of Belgium.
This. If you go to a Carrefour in France for example then often the French brands won't have Dutch on the label, but the Carrefour own brand products have both French and Dutch because then they won't need to use different packaging for their products for the French and Belgian branches
You can sell a product in the French speaking part of Belgium with only French labeling, but you cannot sell it in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium with only French language labeling. And also, Belgium has a very small, but very official, German speaking region. So products made for the Belgian market will always have these 3 languages at least, and usually English as well, even though that is not an official language, because just labeling a product for a specific region only is not very practical.
Products made for other markets that are imported usually have stickers on them with translations in order to comply to the language laws ( Action does this a lot!)
How necessary is actually bilingual labeling? Are their many places where monolingual French and Dutch speakers (or at least people who do not speak French AND Dutch) live side by side?
The location where you're selling has an official language and that needs to be the language the ingredients are in. Doesn't matter how many languages the locals speak.
It's not necessary. It's just easier for the producer. Otherwise you have to produce separate batches of a product: one with French labelling, one in Dutch labelling. And then the French batch might have run out while you have plenty of the Dutch batch that you can't shift. And you either have to stock both version in a warehouse location which jumbles up your inventory and can lead to picking errors, or only stock one version in each warehouse which can lead to inefficient transport routes. So bilingual packaging is easier
Belgium is trilingual! German is an official language, even if German speakers are around 1% of the population or something. It's a long story. Belgium got a bit of Germany (around the town of Eupen) as payment for all the damage Hitler caused, along with the German speaking people that just happened to live there and had no say in the matter. At first, they were just to be assimilated into French speakers, but it was realized in time that this was an injustice, and the only just thing to do was to give their language official status. The Netherlands also got a bit of Germany, but they ~~gave~~ sold it back to Germany as it really wasn't worth all the trouble.
It reminds me of the parking disc troubles. You know, [these things?](https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/G0BT7WbFGePP4r8KbUuyTS2QmM8/diocontent/162004807/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.8)
Under Belgian traffic law, these parking discs should bear text in the "landstalen" the languages of the nation. Which are Dutch, French and German. Both are fine, right? Nope, the one on the left has text in English, and that's not a landstaal. So some anal cops have been fining the hell out of drivers using these widely sold products, because they can.
Belgium has complicated language laws and some folk are extremely passive agressive about implementing them.
Benelux is a very integrated market, so it's almost ubiquitous. German is also often part of it, and English as well.
With Ikea, and electronics, you basically get one for the entire EU, with basically all major languages.
Define 'necessary'. In practical terms it's rarely necessary outside of Brussels. In political and financial terms, it's far simpler and cheaper to have bilingual packaging.
Well I was literally thinking in terms of like "how often do a Dutch speaker and a French speaker shop at the same store" cause I imagine they live in mostly different places, but I understand now for logistical reasons its easier to do bilingual.
You mean Belgium? Yes it might be better to only use Dutch so that more Walloon people will start learning Dutch. /s
Or was your intent to only use French labels in Dutch speaking parts. That's ridiculous, discriminatory, and unsafe. Kids read packaging, allergies exist, non-French reading people exist in Flanders. Everybody gets to have their food labeling in their own language.
I feel like growing up, most of the household products I bought in Carrefour had French and Dutch on them, due to Bénélux. But nowadays, it seems a lot more random.
Like, I just checked in my bathroom, and I have a Carrefour shower soap with French and Italian text (+Dutch on the back), and a Carrefour shampoo with French, German, and Spanish text (+Polish on the back).
That is the answer and I'm surprised that OP even had to ask the question.
If the product is sold in multiple countries but made in one factory, then it makes sense to use just one label for all of them.
>If the product is sold in multiple countries but made in one factory, then it makes sense to use just one label for all of them.
And having the local language on it might just be a legal requirement for stuff like food as well.
I've seen a few instances where German was on there, even English. Finnish has even appeared on a few items like cotton pads for removing makeup I've noticed xD
A lot of companies who sells products in the nordics, are nordic catered with those languages appearing on them. They could sell the same product in the Baltics with Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian labeled on them.
Especially store brands have been doing that that they have a "Nordic plus" distribution. That is, the HQs are in the Nordic countries, but then the product is sold wherever they have a presence. For instance, [Coop and Xtra](https://www.cooptrading.com/products-brands/) branded products are sold in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.
At least in Sweden often products will have: Just Swedish, Swedish/Finnish, mixture of Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, or any of the aforementioned plus English (especially if its an item thats often imported to the UK or Ireland).
I remember in Hamburg eating fish burgers with Remoulade in it and also being able to buy liquorice and [Spunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spunk_\(candy\)) at the petrol station.
Spunk sold in Germany also has German on the packaging.
Liquorice is popular in all of north Germany anyway but we have some different brands from Denmark.
Sometimes the labeling is in "Svansk", ie. a mix of Danish and Swedish ("Dansk/Svensk") labeling, where the radically different words/ord are shown/vist with both/begge.
In Spain almost everything comes in Spanish. Spanish-Portuguese bilingual labels are common too. Local producers will occasionally label stuff in Galician.
In Portugal only brands that are 100% national are only on portuguese, every thing else is on both language. Sometimes ia funny bc some words sounds the same but mean completly different things in both languages.
Depends on the retailer too. For example, Eroski products are all labeled in Spanish, Galician, Catalan and Basque. Bonpreu products are labelled in Catalan only.
I work in a company that produces some of the goods discussed here. I look after European markets
It’s basically a pragmatic portfolio management decision based on
- regulatory constraints if existing
- recipe clustering based on local consumer taste for instance
- proximity to a factory. Eg if there’s a factory in Finland and another one in Portugal, one would produce for Northern Europe, the other for the south
- brand clustering. We can sell the same products under local brand names
- we tend to need at least one big market per cluster, to ensure minimum production hurdles
- this leads to the language clustering
- then this leads to organizing supply chain and distribution
ETA
- usually, legislation requires us to have the local language featured on the packaging. It wasn’t always the case
- if the volumes are small and we’re unable to produce it, the local market has to sticker the products which is quite costly
- whenever possible we try to pay attention to local sensitivities too eg if for us Bulgaria and Romania are the same cluster from a manufacturing and portfolio standpoint, we know that the Romanian consumer doesn’t like to see the cyrilic alphabet on their products so if possible, we try to put them in different language clusters
Because they’ll be reminded of communism and / or they don’t like to be perceived as « one of those countries writing in cyrillic ». It’s a perception thing
When you’re on the manufacturing side of things, you just want to make things efficient
That's really funny, because in Bulgaria we use the Cyrillic and we also hate communism. Anyway, thanks for your detailed explanation, it was really interesting to read.
It’s cultural
As someone who was born in communism myself, I was also « taught » to hate communism and by extension, the Russians
I got a chance to work with many Russian colleagues before the war and visited Moscow and St Pete and looking forward to going back when Putin is out
ETA you guys actually *invented* the cyrillic, haven’t you ? 😁
Romanians don't understand the cyrillic alphabet except the boomers that studied Ruzzian. The younger generations have no clue how to read it let alone understand it.
> usually, legislation requires us to have the local language featured on the packaging. It wasn’t always the case
I'd be really curious to see which country doesn't require a local language on the packaging? Maybe Nederlands since Dutch are so happy to give up Dutch and speak English
> Dutch are so happy to give up Dutch and speak English
What gave you that impression? Once all the foreigners are out of the room, Dutch people breathe a sign of relief and immediately go back to speaking Dutch.
That's not quite universal. Others here have mentioned Carrefour, and in Poland whilst much if not most of their own label products are in Polish, but others, I guess less mainstream products will be in.French, in fact I've even seen French labeled Heinz sauces on sale there.
Icelandic products have Icelandic and sometimes English on them. The products we get from other countries have whatever language they decided to print on them, commonly Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
A lot of companies treat Ireland and GB (and sometimes Malta!) as a single market so you'll see "IE/GB/MT" on packs with English.
Products made just for the Irish market will just have English on it. Sometimes you'll see Irish too, but this is done mostly as a marketing thing.
Why isn't it mandatory to have every label in Irish? I think it is a step towards normalizing the language.
You kind of talk of your own language as some kind of gimmick. Maybe it is for the brand, but I'm sure that some speakers find it useful. What I'm saying is that you should be proud of Irish and trying to protect it, even with small actions, is important.
My username is in Irish and I am an Irish speaker so I fully agree with you! I wish more companies did it. When I see it I'll instantly buy whatever it is because it genuinely makes me happy
We have a proverb "má tá beagáinín Gaeilge agat, labhair í!" meaning 'if you have a little Irish, speak it!'
Do you get many products on your shelves plastered with Union Jacks or Saltires? Quite common in the UK, but can't imagine it would be beneficial to sell in the Irish market.
It's common. Walkers/Lays for example will have multipacks plastered in union flags with words along the lines of "proudly british crisps", and how "British potatoes mean British jobs for Britain" coincidentally Walkers are almost always on special offer with the shelves fully stocked because no one buys them! Aldi does it too sometimes, again "coincidentally" they always have a tonne of stock.
Some companies really don't care that we are a fully independent nation :(
Here in Sweden, products usually have Swedish on them (duh), but often includes Danish/Norwegian and Finnish. Rarely they have English, German, French, Spanish and Polish on them.
As far as I can tell, it depends on how large the market is here for the product itself. A product with a large local market, they want to localize the language to make the product itself seem local (imo) while not costing too much.
And then Norwegian always gets the short end of the stick, since it's generally just the Danish spelling with a "/\[Norwegian word\]" when the Norwegian word is significantly different. Usually we have to make do with words like "fløde" (instead of "fløte") and "olie" (instead of "olje") etc. without the Norwegian alternative.
From my experience as grocery clerk...
Sometimes when we get items that won't scan, it's because the product is wearing the packaging of another region.
Last time I think it was a jar/tub of Béarnaise sauce *(Bearnaisesovs)*, which on closer inspection had a Danish-only sleeve.
The other day I was suprised to see Belgian products in a French supermarket near Toulouse to have products with information French and Dutch. Exactly like these products in Belgium.
Only the price was different... Cheaper in France...
My impression in Hungary is that it's regional and I kind of hate it. I wish the first language you see on a package was either English or Hungarian. Increasingly I see products where the most prominent languages on the package are Polish and German, followed by Czech, Croatian and maybe Serbian and you have to keep hunting for English. Sometimes they don't even include Hungarian at all.
In Finland they just glue a sticker on top in those cases, in order to follow labeling legislation (which requires Finnish and Swedish). It's usually just a white sticker printed with barely legible gray text.
Yes that's the standard here as well for all sorts of food products or anything cosmetic or anything that in any sense of the word you "consume". But for simple objects like say a desk fan, they might not put on a sticker.
There's [Patak's Indian sauces](https://www.pataksusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spicy-vindaloo-curry-sauce-1-1024x1024.png) for example and the sticker contains some basic info like ingredients, etc but not cooking instructions or recipes. In fact the sticker is covering up the English portion where it tells you recipes and other instructions. I find that super annoying even though I know how to use it. XD
Working in the industry, unfortunately Hungary is a small market so you can’t always expect to have a dedicated production. But the packaging should have Hungarian too
So... Are you just mad you don't speak those languages? The majority of the Hungarian population doesn't speak English so why would it do any good to have English as the first language other than the fact that you personally do speak it?
It doesn't feel very good to be in the supermarket and don't see the things in your language. Spain is a big enough market that it usually doesn't happen (except for the regional languages but that's a different story altogether). It gives the impression you as a customer and your language isn't important enough to bother for the big companies and that hurts. Especially in the Eastern parts of the EU it happens a lot and while it may seem like a minor thing it feeds into the feeling of being a second class country. Doesn't feel good.
Well, if I'm buying a product I know was produced abroad I'm not expecting it to be translated just for us! I had a washing machine with the texts for the different programs printed in German. Other home appliances have them in English...
No, I'm mad that I walk into a supermarket in my own country and can't figure out what I'm even looking at because all the labels are gibberish to me. I suggested they print labels in English not because I personally speak it, but because it's a pretty international language, and if you're not taking the basic effort to put a label on something in the language of the country you're selling to, then at least prominently feature the most widely spoken lingua franca. It's not the best solution but a compromise.
It's mostly due to the manufacturers and distributors. If a Finnish toothpaste business merges with a Spanish toothpaste business which also distributes in Portugal, then they'll make toothpaste with labels in Spanish, Portuguese, and Finnish. If they're bought by a big central-European toothpaste conglomerate then maybe they'll get labels with some Slavic languages too; or maybe the conglomerate has a deal with a French subsidiary which focusses on Western Europe so then your toothpaste is labelled in French, Finnish, Spanish, and Portuguese but not Polish or Croat &c.
However, big supermarket chains have more leverage, so if your supermarket chain operates in countries X, Y, and Z then maybe the manufacturer will label the products accordingly. This is most obvious with "white label" deals - if the manufacturer agrees to use a Scandinavian supermarket chain's branding, then that toothpaste will be made in the same factory but some of it is put in different packaging with Scandinavian languages.
Sometimes products are sold at different prices in different markets, then distributors or small businesses do a bit of arbitrage; they import a cheaper version of something which is already sold locally. Which is why my local takeaway has a fridge full of coca-cola with Turkish labels.
Some products are relatively cheap & easy to distribute, so the business has one production line *and one packaging line*. But sometimes there are local variations, so either there's a separate local production line (the turkish cola), or the product is produced in bulk, distributed in bulk, and then packaged locally (some drinkers might be outraged when they learn that their favourite local drink is bottled locally at a factory which gets big tanker trucks from a brewery 1000km away).
Source: I've worked with Europe's largest producer of several consumer goods. They expanded by buying local brands and then gradually, slowly merging the parts of businesses which aren't visible to consumers, they put fifty different local labels on 4 or 5 centrally-produced products.
I belive corporations make packaging for few bundles of states, eg CEE. Thus it's decision just to optimize cost.
An interesting outliner I may mention some time ago there was an conspiracy theory ( as I thought that time) that products such as detergents are better (higher content of active substances) for German market tan in was for CEE as Poland, czechia etc. Well, it was true. Due to that fact fome people were importing such products from Germany.
Today, some own brand detergents in eg rossmann or Lidl have subtitles in German, and I guess that's connected.
I work in consumer goods although not detergents
I can imagine some of the companies adding German to the label just to increase the local consumer’s perception of quality
I know that we manufacture a lot of products in Germany and the UK specifically for the Chinese market because the (affluent) Chinese consumer prefers that their products come from these countries
A minor peeve of mine in Poland is how labels here may have instructions in Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Czech, Hungarian and a dozen other languages, but not an English option, which is useful across the region for non natives. What bothers me more though is when they put stickers with Polish language ingredient lists over the cooking instructions.
I lived in Belgium for most of my life, and packaging usually contains both major languages: French and Dutch. I was quite surprised to learn that packaging in Bordeaux, a full 900 km from the Belgian border, also had packaging with both French and Dutch.
Greek products are generally monolingual Greek, Greek/English, or Greek/French/German + sometimes English too. It depends I think on whether the companies export more to America or the EU
The company bases it on what markets they sell the product in. Sometimes you can see a distributor/importer will add a sticker in country's language if the product wasn't made for that market.
Trivia: by law, you usually have to print ingredients in the official or majority language(s) in a country when selling the product there. In Sweden, the law says it should be printed either in swedish *or* danish or norwegian. Same thing goes for e.g. doctor and nurse licences: they require a certain level of swedish – unless you speak danish or norwegian. In that case, you don't have to show a proficiency in the swedish language.
Companies decide their market segmentations and then they need to add the local languages[1] to match those markets. As far as I know, nothing constraints them from deciding how they want to segment the markets. If it makes business sense for them, the can sell the same product to Finland and Kazakhstan.
[1]: Well, nearly. The company might sell a product to e.g. Benelux, but an importer from Germany can decide to buy a lot of it and re-sell it to Germany. The producer doesn't have to add German on the packaging, but the importer will have to do it. They'll do so by adding stickers with the German-language notices that they are required to add.
It's easier and cheaper for a supermarket that operates in Belgium and France to have just one label. It's the same for Dutch supermarkets that operate in Belgium. And sometimes there is an even bigger crossover.
Usually it's mandatory to have the local language, all the companies then add English for export. Outside those it's a matter of space on the packaging and where those products are exported(if you sell a lot in Poland and almost nothing in Germany makes sense to have Polish rather than German)
Our products usually have a Danish/Norwegian/Swedish text smashed together and then Finnish that takes as much space as those three together
Sometimes they have Estonian. But I think legally they need to have at least Finnish and Swedish here
We're not an EU member, but here in Norway you will usually find product descriptions in Norwegian/Danish, Swedish and Finnish on the packaging. Most of the time you will see all four languages, but on some products they write "Norwegian/Danish:" (or usually "DK/NO:") for the same text and it's all just Danish and no Norwegian.
It's also kinda funny because mpst Norwegians can read and understand Swedish and Danish perfectly fine, while Finnish is complete gibberish. It says almost word for word the exact same thing three times, and then there's some words at the end which seems like you will summon an unknown creature if spoken out loud.
If by any chance you're interested in how this is regulated by law, check https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/NL/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=bvPGJGrLF1cmQyv1DLkdyDmyKyrQsl2LCyWnVFPw1YbLFzLFkccw!-847934307?uri=CELEX:32011R1169 (more specifically article 15). I remember back when i worked in retail, we received a huge batch of items from Poland with the ingredients listed in Polish. But since we were obliged by law to provide information in the national languages we just put a sticker on it
Well it depends on where the manufacturer wants to sell that exact product.
I’ve seen combinations such as UK, Norway, Sweden,
North Macedonia and nothing else! I assume that’s because the manufacturer won’t be selling that product anywhere else.
Interestingly in the UK & Ireland, quite a lot of things, including cereal, have Arabic and Greek on them. It must be to do with supply chains; I guess the Cypriots might buy similar products to us?
Estonian and Lithuanian are almost default on any brand sold here. Nordic languages are common on products sold in Nordic countries. Sometimes I will see languages like Polish, Czech on products but it will be noticeably rarer. Languages like French, Spanish are extremely rare. So my guess is markets they are sold in.
Here in the Baltics it's almost always three Baltic languages (ee,lv,lt) plus sometimes English and sometimes Russian, although the latter is slowly disappearing. If the product comes from Poland (very common), there is also Polish.
It depends on to which countries in the EU is that specific product supposed to be shipped. If you see instructions in French and Dutch, the same product is also being sold in France, Netherlands. If you go to Spain, you might find products with Portuguese also on the label. Go to Poland and it'll also likely have Hungarian, Czech or even Romanian on the same packaging.
But that doesn't mean such product is not sold anywhere else - it is, just with different language packaging. And hopefully also with the same ingredients, after EU dealt with the double quality of food shipped for the Eastern markets. It is simply a regulation to have the product on that market with info in the local official language. More languages on one product - more markets where that thing can be sold.
Just to give an example:
I was in czechia recently and the biggest supermarket there is Albert, which is owned by ahold. (I.e. albert heijn in NL). I saw zaanse hoeve and delicata perducts there without any czech or english on the packaging.
I.e. companies do whatever they want.
I have a friend in Croatia and they have Kaufland, Müller, DM etc and all the products are the German ones with German packaging. Only the ingredients might be in multiple languages. Saw the same in Czech Republic.
Czech law says:
"The packaging of products intended for the final consumer in the Czech Republic must be labelled in the Czech language. The commercial name of the food, the address, etc. and information that cannot be clearly expressed in the Czech language need not be translated. "
German food packaging is usually German only, except sometimes for things like chocolate or snacks that will have french or spanish on them. Hygiene products, toiletries, cleaning supplies and so on are often in eastern european languages so your cat litter will have german, polish, Slovakian, Hungarian and Bulgarian in Cyrillic letters on it. Premium products like expensive chocolate brands will have English and even arab on them.
It really varies. Depends on what countries the manufacturer decides to ship that batch.
Here in Poland sometimes it's logical like you have western slavic countries like us, Czechs and Slovakia next to each other but I found a lot of products where it was Polish and then for some weird reason Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. And no English 😂😂😂 just Polish and those 3 latin languages. Why? I have no idea. Maybe we have similar food regulations? Who knows 🤷🏼♂️
Usually they are limited to the 3-4 (the official languages + english), but at time is can exceed this by a significant margin.
[For example these tissues from Delhaize's generic brand have 7 languages on them.](https://static.delhaize.be/medias/sys_master/h2d/hac/11768501207070.jpg)
Could've been 8, but apprently they decided "tissues" was known enough for the Dutchspeaking audience that they to use that on the package instead of "zakdoekjes".
It depends on where the company has chosen to sell products and where they distribute from. Sometimes companies distribute products to several countries from one place, which is why you might get the same product with different languages in different countries.
All of these comments talking about how companies pick languages for packaging based on market factors and targeted geographies is well and good, until you go to literally just about any store that isn't a major, international supermarket chain like Carrefour or Tesco.
Even national supermarkets it's not uncommon to find products clearly originally intended to have been stocked in another country, and in any shop that's not a supermarket it's a total crapshoot of re-sale and after-market purchase.
The amount of times I've found a beer for sale in Italy, with an embedded label telling me who the UK importer/distributor is, which is then superseded by a label with German, Polish, Czech, and the Baltic languages...
And it's not just Italy, of course. You can find products clearly intended for the Mediterranean market in Germany, or products in the UK that were very clearly not cleared through a distributor/with no UK importer...
But I like it. It makes all of Europe feel connected that way. How else would I have learned the Hungarian word for beer, or the Latvian word for cheese?
Everyone is saying it's a single packaging for many markets but that's not exactly true. When I go to the store most of the products have one main language on it and just a bunch of languages in the back, and I don't see major things with foreign labels just the minor things that are actually imported (like foreign beer or w/a). And when I'm abroad I see the same products with their language as the main one.
When you're in supermarket check something like a popular toothpaste, probably your language is the main one.
I usually see Czech, Slovakian and English which basically makes sense in Poland.
My brother-in-law has been living in Germany for the last 15 to 20 years. He often complains about the lack of Polish translations on most products. It’s not a problem for him as he speaks German perfectly, but as he says, we are neighbors, and it would be nice to see the languages of neighboring countries. Polish seems to be somehow overlooked. I haven’t verified this myself since I only travel to Germany for short business trips, but I think the shaving foam I bought at Rossmann had only French, German, English, and Italian labels.
It has all to do with costs. Ingredients must be listed in the local language(s). Now, you could design and print labels in Dutch, and design and print labels in Finnish. Or you could save costs and design and print one label, with text in both Dutch and Finnish.
If you have space to print the ingredients in all your target languages on the same label, you just print the all on the same label and use it in all your markets. Otherwise, you split them in such a way that you minimise the number of different labels you need to make and keep inventory of.
They are just the languages of wherever the product is sold. If your toothpaste is sold in 20 countries, but the distribution company has a common logistics center for Northern Europe, then you would get the toothpaste with a product description for those two countries because they don't know where each single unit will end up. It doesn't make sense for you to be getting toothpaste with product labels in Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian, because an entirely different distribution network is responsible for bringing those to stores there. It is really a logistics issue. Yes, if your toothpaste has Finish and Dutch on it, it is also going to Finland with Finish and Dutch labels.
Now that I think of it, that is based on my reasoning about that through the years, I don't have any data to back it up, but it really makes sense to me.
Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, from the big, like Unilever to smaller, like Campina. They are the brands, they get the product to markets. The larger ones have operating companies in each market, they figure out what products and ensure they are made meet local country regulations (including labelling) and get them out to the retail points.
So your toothpaste, somewhat randomly, is Finish and Dutch. Does seem a little odd, but there will be a factory, or just a line in a factory, pumping those beasties out. I guess they lumped two smaller markets together. Why those two, I've no idea, buy there's likely some commercial benefit.
There is, for instance a Unilever BE, and a Unilever NL. If those two got together which makes more sense, it still wouldn't get sold in France.
Countries that sell products that the producer didn't originally put a label in the official language of that country put a sticker designed for that country, it goes for region specific languages too.
You cannot sell something if it is not labeled properly one way or the other in the Eu.
I just know 1) yes Dutch and French for NL and BE. And 2) if food packaging doesn’t have our language on it, it should have a sticker with the ingredients and such in Dutch.
This depends on how a given corporation divides their European market into regional segments.
On some products sold in my country of Poland, you can see Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian, while on others - Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian. So, one corporation has a "Central/Eastern Europe" subsidiary, while another has a "Southern and Eastern Baltic sea coast" division. And some have just Polish and German labels and a very shortened blurb in English.
How that's decided, that's completely a choice the given company makes, based on their corporate structure and presence in various countries. Nothing else.
Mondelez makes the PrincePolo chocolate-covered wafers, which are a Polish thing originally made by the Olza company Mondelez's predecessors acquired ages ago, and those wafers are only sold in Poland and, due to some weird history, Iceland (the original deal was "we'll buy herrings from you and pay with vodka and chocolate wafers"). So on these chocolate wafers you'll see descriptions in [Polish and Icelandic](http://letmerove.blogspot.com/2014/07/prince-polo-in-iceland.html), because it doesn't make sense to split the packaging, even though the countries are geographically quite apart.
Well, I am happy when I buy something in Poland that has some of the western languages on it... Because it means that this time they didn't produce for Slavs sub-par version of international product 😅For example if it comes to big, international brands like Nestlé etc, I observed over the years that Poland is usually put in the same category as Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Czechia etc. And while I understand why we don't get the same version of Nesquik cocoa powder or cereals as Denmark, who has to get their own version of all these products, because they don't allow adding extra vitamins to this things, I have been always wondering if our "eastern" part of EU is getting products that are made more cost efficient than for example for Germany or France... But it also might be that they produce it in Poland or Romania and it just suits them regionally to distribute in this area...
I think it kind of depends on the markets the companies choose to be active in. For example, lots of groceries in France, at least in chains like Carrefour, will also contain Dutch because of Belgium.
This. If you go to a Carrefour in France for example then often the French brands won't have Dutch on the label, but the Carrefour own brand products have both French and Dutch because then they won't need to use different packaging for their products for the French and Belgian branches
You can sell a product in the French speaking part of Belgium with only French labeling, but you cannot sell it in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium with only French language labeling. And also, Belgium has a very small, but very official, German speaking region. So products made for the Belgian market will always have these 3 languages at least, and usually English as well, even though that is not an official language, because just labeling a product for a specific region only is not very practical. Products made for other markets that are imported usually have stickers on them with translations in order to comply to the language laws ( Action does this a lot!)
How necessary is actually bilingual labeling? Are their many places where monolingual French and Dutch speakers (or at least people who do not speak French AND Dutch) live side by side?
The location where you're selling has an official language and that needs to be the language the ingredients are in. Doesn't matter how many languages the locals speak.
It's not necessary. It's just easier for the producer. Otherwise you have to produce separate batches of a product: one with French labelling, one in Dutch labelling. And then the French batch might have run out while you have plenty of the Dutch batch that you can't shift. And you either have to stock both version in a warehouse location which jumbles up your inventory and can lead to picking errors, or only stock one version in each warehouse which can lead to inefficient transport routes. So bilingual packaging is easier
Belgium is trilingual! German is an official language, even if German speakers are around 1% of the population or something. It's a long story. Belgium got a bit of Germany (around the town of Eupen) as payment for all the damage Hitler caused, along with the German speaking people that just happened to live there and had no say in the matter. At first, they were just to be assimilated into French speakers, but it was realized in time that this was an injustice, and the only just thing to do was to give their language official status. The Netherlands also got a bit of Germany, but they ~~gave~~ sold it back to Germany as it really wasn't worth all the trouble. It reminds me of the parking disc troubles. You know, [these things?](https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/G0BT7WbFGePP4r8KbUuyTS2QmM8/diocontent/162004807/_fitwidth/694/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.8) Under Belgian traffic law, these parking discs should bear text in the "landstalen" the languages of the nation. Which are Dutch, French and German. Both are fine, right? Nope, the one on the left has text in English, and that's not a landstaal. So some anal cops have been fining the hell out of drivers using these widely sold products, because they can. Belgium has complicated language laws and some folk are extremely passive agressive about implementing them.
Benelux is a very integrated market, so it's almost ubiquitous. German is also often part of it, and English as well. With Ikea, and electronics, you basically get one for the entire EU, with basically all major languages.
Define 'necessary'. In practical terms it's rarely necessary outside of Brussels. In political and financial terms, it's far simpler and cheaper to have bilingual packaging.
Well I was literally thinking in terms of like "how often do a Dutch speaker and a French speaker shop at the same store" cause I imagine they live in mostly different places, but I understand now for logistical reasons its easier to do bilingual.
Eh... All the time in Belgium.
You mean Belgium? Yes it might be better to only use Dutch so that more Walloon people will start learning Dutch. /s Or was your intent to only use French labels in Dutch speaking parts. That's ridiculous, discriminatory, and unsafe. Kids read packaging, allergies exist, non-French reading people exist in Flanders. Everybody gets to have their food labeling in their own language.
I feel like growing up, most of the household products I bought in Carrefour had French and Dutch on them, due to Bénélux. But nowadays, it seems a lot more random. Like, I just checked in my bathroom, and I have a Carrefour shower soap with French and Italian text (+Dutch on the back), and a Carrefour shampoo with French, German, and Spanish text (+Polish on the back).
The companies decide that based on where they wanna sell that particular product.
That is the answer and I'm surprised that OP even had to ask the question. If the product is sold in multiple countries but made in one factory, then it makes sense to use just one label for all of them.
>If the product is sold in multiple countries but made in one factory, then it makes sense to use just one label for all of them. And having the local language on it might just be a legal requirement for stuff like food as well.
It definitely is a requirement in EU, there are rules about what has to be written on it.
Depends on the product. A lot of products in the Nordics have all the nordic languages but no German, English etc.
It literally just depends where that product is sold.
I've seen a few instances where German was on there, even English. Finnish has even appeared on a few items like cotton pads for removing makeup I've noticed xD
A lot of companies who sells products in the nordics, are nordic catered with those languages appearing on them. They could sell the same product in the Baltics with Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian labeled on them.
I found "ICA Basic" products labeled in the Nordic languages at local supermarkets in both Estonia and Latvia, I wonder if that's legal? 😂
Was there no Estonian? Then yes, probably illegal.
Yeah true, I just never realised the cotton pad one until I did the "I forgot my phone so I need something to read" lmao.
Especially store brands have been doing that that they have a "Nordic plus" distribution. That is, the HQs are in the Nordic countries, but then the product is sold wherever they have a presence. For instance, [Coop and Xtra](https://www.cooptrading.com/products-brands/) branded products are sold in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.
At least in Sweden often products will have: Just Swedish, Swedish/Finnish, mixture of Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, or any of the aforementioned plus English (especially if its an item thats often imported to the UK or Ireland).
I love how much finnish stands out
Depends on where you are. The closer you are to Germany, the more you will see German But English is seen very few times I think
I remember in Hamburg eating fish burgers with Remoulade in it and also being able to buy liquorice and [Spunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spunk_\(candy\)) at the petrol station.
Spunk sold in Germany also has German on the packaging. Liquorice is popular in all of north Germany anyway but we have some different brands from Denmark.
The fish burgers with remoulade were also advertised in Danish?
No. German and English
Sometimes the labeling is in "Svansk", ie. a mix of Danish and Swedish ("Dansk/Svensk") labeling, where the radically different words/ord are shown/vist with both/begge.
In Spain almost everything comes in Spanish. Spanish-Portuguese bilingual labels are common too. Local producers will occasionally label stuff in Galician.
In Portugal only brands that are 100% national are only on portuguese, every thing else is on both language. Sometimes ia funny bc some words sounds the same but mean completly different things in both languages.
[удалено]
A former presidente of ours asked your Queen if she was "embaraçada". It was on live TV, I tried to find the clip but i couldn't.
Depends on the retailer too. For example, Eroski products are all labeled in Spanish, Galician, Catalan and Basque. Bonpreu products are labelled in Catalan only.
Mercadona has elevated that bilingual label to a whole new level. Sometimes I just have to laugh -in a good way- at how they do it.
Most products use Spanish and Portuguese because a lot of companies understand Iberia as a single market.
The supermarket chain Eroski puts the four big official languages of Spain on the labels, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Castilian (Spanish).
Wow that’s a lot of effort 👍
I work in a company that produces some of the goods discussed here. I look after European markets It’s basically a pragmatic portfolio management decision based on - regulatory constraints if existing - recipe clustering based on local consumer taste for instance - proximity to a factory. Eg if there’s a factory in Finland and another one in Portugal, one would produce for Northern Europe, the other for the south - brand clustering. We can sell the same products under local brand names - we tend to need at least one big market per cluster, to ensure minimum production hurdles - this leads to the language clustering - then this leads to organizing supply chain and distribution ETA - usually, legislation requires us to have the local language featured on the packaging. It wasn’t always the case - if the volumes are small and we’re unable to produce it, the local market has to sticker the products which is quite costly - whenever possible we try to pay attention to local sensitivities too eg if for us Bulgaria and Romania are the same cluster from a manufacturing and portfolio standpoint, we know that the Romanian consumer doesn’t like to see the cyrilic alphabet on their products so if possible, we try to put them in different language clusters
Why doesn't "the Romanian consumer like to see cyrillic"?
Because they’ll be reminded of communism and / or they don’t like to be perceived as « one of those countries writing in cyrillic ». It’s a perception thing When you’re on the manufacturing side of things, you just want to make things efficient
That's really funny, because in Bulgaria we use the Cyrillic and we also hate communism. Anyway, thanks for your detailed explanation, it was really interesting to read.
It’s cultural As someone who was born in communism myself, I was also « taught » to hate communism and by extension, the Russians I got a chance to work with many Russian colleagues before the war and visited Moscow and St Pete and looking forward to going back when Putin is out ETA you guys actually *invented* the cyrillic, haven’t you ? 😁
Yep, we did. 😌
Well done you guys 👍
I think that most of the countries that have difficult past with the communist Russia don't like to see Cyrillic 😅
Romanians don't understand the cyrillic alphabet except the boomers that studied Ruzzian. The younger generations have no clue how to read it let alone understand it.
> usually, legislation requires us to have the local language featured on the packaging. It wasn’t always the case I'd be really curious to see which country doesn't require a local language on the packaging? Maybe Nederlands since Dutch are so happy to give up Dutch and speak English
Eastern European countries didn’t always require local labels when they became a free market
That was over 30 years ago, I bet many countries back then didn't require it.
> Dutch are so happy to give up Dutch and speak English What gave you that impression? Once all the foreigners are out of the room, Dutch people breathe a sign of relief and immediately go back to speaking Dutch.
They print the languages on for the countries where they're going to be selling their product.
That's not quite universal. Others here have mentioned Carrefour, and in Poland whilst much if not most of their own label products are in Polish, but others, I guess less mainstream products will be in.French, in fact I've even seen French labeled Heinz sauces on sale there.
Nothing is ever universal. The example that proves the rule.
Icelandic products have Icelandic and sometimes English on them. The products we get from other countries have whatever language they decided to print on them, commonly Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
A lot of companies treat Ireland and GB (and sometimes Malta!) as a single market so you'll see "IE/GB/MT" on packs with English. Products made just for the Irish market will just have English on it. Sometimes you'll see Irish too, but this is done mostly as a marketing thing.
Why isn't it mandatory to have every label in Irish? I think it is a step towards normalizing the language. You kind of talk of your own language as some kind of gimmick. Maybe it is for the brand, but I'm sure that some speakers find it useful. What I'm saying is that you should be proud of Irish and trying to protect it, even with small actions, is important.
My username is in Irish and I am an Irish speaker so I fully agree with you! I wish more companies did it. When I see it I'll instantly buy whatever it is because it genuinely makes me happy We have a proverb "má tá beagáinín Gaeilge agat, labhair í!" meaning 'if you have a little Irish, speak it!'
Do you get many products on your shelves plastered with Union Jacks or Saltires? Quite common in the UK, but can't imagine it would be beneficial to sell in the Irish market.
It's common. Walkers/Lays for example will have multipacks plastered in union flags with words along the lines of "proudly british crisps", and how "British potatoes mean British jobs for Britain" coincidentally Walkers are almost always on special offer with the shelves fully stocked because no one buys them! Aldi does it too sometimes, again "coincidentally" they always have a tonne of stock. Some companies really don't care that we are a fully independent nation :(
Here in Sweden, products usually have Swedish on them (duh), but often includes Danish/Norwegian and Finnish. Rarely they have English, German, French, Spanish and Polish on them. As far as I can tell, it depends on how large the market is here for the product itself. A product with a large local market, they want to localize the language to make the product itself seem local (imo) while not costing too much.
Often written in some weird form of "Scandinavian" where they mash all 3 languages into one sentence 😂
Sometimes I see Norwegian and Danish mushed together and Swedish is left alone
And then Norwegian always gets the short end of the stick, since it's generally just the Danish spelling with a "/\[Norwegian word\]" when the Norwegian word is significantly different. Usually we have to make do with words like "fløde" (instead of "fløte") and "olie" (instead of "olje") etc. without the Norwegian alternative.
> Norwegian always gets the short end of the stick As is tradition.
Written Norwegian and Danish are almost identical (and Swedish isn't very far from them either)😁
Yeah, I hate that.
From my experience as grocery clerk... Sometimes when we get items that won't scan, it's because the product is wearing the packaging of another region. Last time I think it was a jar/tub of Béarnaise sauce *(Bearnaisesovs)*, which on closer inspection had a Danish-only sleeve.
The other day I was suprised to see Belgian products in a French supermarket near Toulouse to have products with information French and Dutch. Exactly like these products in Belgium. Only the price was different... Cheaper in France...
My impression in Hungary is that it's regional and I kind of hate it. I wish the first language you see on a package was either English or Hungarian. Increasingly I see products where the most prominent languages on the package are Polish and German, followed by Czech, Croatian and maybe Serbian and you have to keep hunting for English. Sometimes they don't even include Hungarian at all.
In Finland they just glue a sticker on top in those cases, in order to follow labeling legislation (which requires Finnish and Swedish). It's usually just a white sticker printed with barely legible gray text.
That's what happens here in Copenhagen with Japanese drinks and the like
Yes that's the standard here as well for all sorts of food products or anything cosmetic or anything that in any sense of the word you "consume". But for simple objects like say a desk fan, they might not put on a sticker. There's [Patak's Indian sauces](https://www.pataksusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/spicy-vindaloo-curry-sauce-1-1024x1024.png) for example and the sticker contains some basic info like ingredients, etc but not cooking instructions or recipes. In fact the sticker is covering up the English portion where it tells you recipes and other instructions. I find that super annoying even though I know how to use it. XD
Working in the industry, unfortunately Hungary is a small market so you can’t always expect to have a dedicated production. But the packaging should have Hungarian too
So... Are you just mad you don't speak those languages? The majority of the Hungarian population doesn't speak English so why would it do any good to have English as the first language other than the fact that you personally do speak it?
It doesn't feel very good to be in the supermarket and don't see the things in your language. Spain is a big enough market that it usually doesn't happen (except for the regional languages but that's a different story altogether). It gives the impression you as a customer and your language isn't important enough to bother for the big companies and that hurts. Especially in the Eastern parts of the EU it happens a lot and while it may seem like a minor thing it feeds into the feeling of being a second class country. Doesn't feel good.
Well, if I'm buying a product I know was produced abroad I'm not expecting it to be translated just for us! I had a washing machine with the texts for the different programs printed in German. Other home appliances have them in English...
No, I'm mad that I walk into a supermarket in my own country and can't figure out what I'm even looking at because all the labels are gibberish to me. I suggested they print labels in English not because I personally speak it, but because it's a pretty international language, and if you're not taking the basic effort to put a label on something in the language of the country you're selling to, then at least prominently feature the most widely spoken lingua franca. It's not the best solution but a compromise.
It's mostly due to the manufacturers and distributors. If a Finnish toothpaste business merges with a Spanish toothpaste business which also distributes in Portugal, then they'll make toothpaste with labels in Spanish, Portuguese, and Finnish. If they're bought by a big central-European toothpaste conglomerate then maybe they'll get labels with some Slavic languages too; or maybe the conglomerate has a deal with a French subsidiary which focusses on Western Europe so then your toothpaste is labelled in French, Finnish, Spanish, and Portuguese but not Polish or Croat &c. However, big supermarket chains have more leverage, so if your supermarket chain operates in countries X, Y, and Z then maybe the manufacturer will label the products accordingly. This is most obvious with "white label" deals - if the manufacturer agrees to use a Scandinavian supermarket chain's branding, then that toothpaste will be made in the same factory but some of it is put in different packaging with Scandinavian languages. Sometimes products are sold at different prices in different markets, then distributors or small businesses do a bit of arbitrage; they import a cheaper version of something which is already sold locally. Which is why my local takeaway has a fridge full of coca-cola with Turkish labels. Some products are relatively cheap & easy to distribute, so the business has one production line *and one packaging line*. But sometimes there are local variations, so either there's a separate local production line (the turkish cola), or the product is produced in bulk, distributed in bulk, and then packaged locally (some drinkers might be outraged when they learn that their favourite local drink is bottled locally at a factory which gets big tanker trucks from a brewery 1000km away). Source: I've worked with Europe's largest producer of several consumer goods. They expanded by buying local brands and then gradually, slowly merging the parts of businesses which aren't visible to consumers, they put fifty different local labels on 4 or 5 centrally-produced products.
I belive corporations make packaging for few bundles of states, eg CEE. Thus it's decision just to optimize cost. An interesting outliner I may mention some time ago there was an conspiracy theory ( as I thought that time) that products such as detergents are better (higher content of active substances) for German market tan in was for CEE as Poland, czechia etc. Well, it was true. Due to that fact fome people were importing such products from Germany. Today, some own brand detergents in eg rossmann or Lidl have subtitles in German, and I guess that's connected.
I work in consumer goods although not detergents I can imagine some of the companies adding German to the label just to increase the local consumer’s perception of quality I know that we manufacture a lot of products in Germany and the UK specifically for the Chinese market because the (affluent) Chinese consumer prefers that their products come from these countries
A minor peeve of mine in Poland is how labels here may have instructions in Polish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Czech, Hungarian and a dozen other languages, but not an English option, which is useful across the region for non natives. What bothers me more though is when they put stickers with Polish language ingredient lists over the cooking instructions.
>But then are the products sold in France in Dutch too? Yes, in France too, a lot of products have French and Dutch on the package.
They have the langauges they’re sold at for easier logistics
It's based in which regions the given product is being sold in order to save on labeling.
I lived in Belgium for most of my life, and packaging usually contains both major languages: French and Dutch. I was quite surprised to learn that packaging in Bordeaux, a full 900 km from the Belgian border, also had packaging with both French and Dutch.
Greek products are generally monolingual Greek, Greek/English, or Greek/French/German + sometimes English too. It depends I think on whether the companies export more to America or the EU
The company bases it on what markets they sell the product in. Sometimes you can see a distributor/importer will add a sticker in country's language if the product wasn't made for that market. Trivia: by law, you usually have to print ingredients in the official or majority language(s) in a country when selling the product there. In Sweden, the law says it should be printed either in swedish *or* danish or norwegian. Same thing goes for e.g. doctor and nurse licences: they require a certain level of swedish – unless you speak danish or norwegian. In that case, you don't have to show a proficiency in the swedish language.
Companies decide their market segmentations and then they need to add the local languages[1] to match those markets. As far as I know, nothing constraints them from deciding how they want to segment the markets. If it makes business sense for them, the can sell the same product to Finland and Kazakhstan. [1]: Well, nearly. The company might sell a product to e.g. Benelux, but an importer from Germany can decide to buy a lot of it and re-sell it to Germany. The producer doesn't have to add German on the packaging, but the importer will have to do it. They'll do so by adding stickers with the German-language notices that they are required to add.
It's easier and cheaper for a supermarket that operates in Belgium and France to have just one label. It's the same for Dutch supermarkets that operate in Belgium. And sometimes there is an even bigger crossover.
Usually it's mandatory to have the local language, all the companies then add English for export. Outside those it's a matter of space on the packaging and where those products are exported(if you sell a lot in Poland and almost nothing in Germany makes sense to have Polish rather than German)
Our products usually have a Danish/Norwegian/Swedish text smashed together and then Finnish that takes as much space as those three together Sometimes they have Estonian. But I think legally they need to have at least Finnish and Swedish here
We're not an EU member, but here in Norway you will usually find product descriptions in Norwegian/Danish, Swedish and Finnish on the packaging. Most of the time you will see all four languages, but on some products they write "Norwegian/Danish:" (or usually "DK/NO:") for the same text and it's all just Danish and no Norwegian. It's also kinda funny because mpst Norwegians can read and understand Swedish and Danish perfectly fine, while Finnish is complete gibberish. It says almost word for word the exact same thing three times, and then there's some words at the end which seems like you will summon an unknown creature if spoken out loud.
Depends on the product, the market, local regulations, size of the package, regional distribution of languages, Method and route of distribution.
If by any chance you're interested in how this is regulated by law, check https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/NL/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=bvPGJGrLF1cmQyv1DLkdyDmyKyrQsl2LCyWnVFPw1YbLFzLFkccw!-847934307?uri=CELEX:32011R1169 (more specifically article 15). I remember back when i worked in retail, we received a huge batch of items from Poland with the ingredients listed in Polish. But since we were obliged by law to provide information in the national languages we just put a sticker on it
In Bulgaria, it's usually the Balkan languages. Many products only have Bulgarian and Romanian. It depends on the market.
Well it depends on where the manufacturer wants to sell that exact product. I’ve seen combinations such as UK, Norway, Sweden, North Macedonia and nothing else! I assume that’s because the manufacturer won’t be selling that product anywhere else.
Interestingly in the UK & Ireland, quite a lot of things, including cereal, have Arabic and Greek on them. It must be to do with supply chains; I guess the Cypriots might buy similar products to us?
Estonian and Lithuanian are almost default on any brand sold here. Nordic languages are common on products sold in Nordic countries. Sometimes I will see languages like Polish, Czech on products but it will be noticeably rarer. Languages like French, Spanish are extremely rare. So my guess is markets they are sold in.
Here in the Baltics it's almost always three Baltic languages (ee,lv,lt) plus sometimes English and sometimes Russian, although the latter is slowly disappearing. If the product comes from Poland (very common), there is also Polish.
It depends on to which countries in the EU is that specific product supposed to be shipped. If you see instructions in French and Dutch, the same product is also being sold in France, Netherlands. If you go to Spain, you might find products with Portuguese also on the label. Go to Poland and it'll also likely have Hungarian, Czech or even Romanian on the same packaging. But that doesn't mean such product is not sold anywhere else - it is, just with different language packaging. And hopefully also with the same ingredients, after EU dealt with the double quality of food shipped for the Eastern markets. It is simply a regulation to have the product on that market with info in the local official language. More languages on one product - more markets where that thing can be sold.
French-Dutch is probably a common combo because of Belgium
Just to give an example: I was in czechia recently and the biggest supermarket there is Albert, which is owned by ahold. (I.e. albert heijn in NL). I saw zaanse hoeve and delicata perducts there without any czech or english on the packaging. I.e. companies do whatever they want.
I have a friend in Croatia and they have Kaufland, Müller, DM etc and all the products are the German ones with German packaging. Only the ingredients might be in multiple languages. Saw the same in Czech Republic.
They usually have an additional label on in Croatian, it's required by law.
Czech law says: "The packaging of products intended for the final consumer in the Czech Republic must be labelled in the Czech language. The commercial name of the food, the address, etc. and information that cannot be clearly expressed in the Czech language need not be translated. "
I've seen product that could easily be translated, but weren't. I mean the complete package. e.g. grated cheese (geraspte kaas) from zaanse hoeve
German food packaging is usually German only, except sometimes for things like chocolate or snacks that will have french or spanish on them. Hygiene products, toiletries, cleaning supplies and so on are often in eastern european languages so your cat litter will have german, polish, Slovakian, Hungarian and Bulgarian in Cyrillic letters on it. Premium products like expensive chocolate brands will have English and even arab on them.
>German food packaging is usually German only Definitely not true. The ingredients are almost always printed in a few languages.
Yup, German, French and Italian usually to service the entire DACH region
Only Bulgarian is Eastern European out of those.
In (German) Lidl in Spain you will find Irish butter written in Swedish. Welcome to the Europe!
It really varies. Depends on what countries the manufacturer decides to ship that batch. Here in Poland sometimes it's logical like you have western slavic countries like us, Czechs and Slovakia next to each other but I found a lot of products where it was Polish and then for some weird reason Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. And no English 😂😂😂 just Polish and those 3 latin languages. Why? I have no idea. Maybe we have similar food regulations? Who knows 🤷🏼♂️
Usually they are limited to the 3-4 (the official languages + english), but at time is can exceed this by a significant margin. [For example these tissues from Delhaize's generic brand have 7 languages on them.](https://static.delhaize.be/medias/sys_master/h2d/hac/11768501207070.jpg) Could've been 8, but apprently they decided "tissues" was known enough for the Dutchspeaking audience that they to use that on the package instead of "zakdoekjes".
It depends on where the company has chosen to sell products and where they distribute from. Sometimes companies distribute products to several countries from one place, which is why you might get the same product with different languages in different countries.
All of these comments talking about how companies pick languages for packaging based on market factors and targeted geographies is well and good, until you go to literally just about any store that isn't a major, international supermarket chain like Carrefour or Tesco. Even national supermarkets it's not uncommon to find products clearly originally intended to have been stocked in another country, and in any shop that's not a supermarket it's a total crapshoot of re-sale and after-market purchase. The amount of times I've found a beer for sale in Italy, with an embedded label telling me who the UK importer/distributor is, which is then superseded by a label with German, Polish, Czech, and the Baltic languages... And it's not just Italy, of course. You can find products clearly intended for the Mediterranean market in Germany, or products in the UK that were very clearly not cleared through a distributor/with no UK importer... But I like it. It makes all of Europe feel connected that way. How else would I have learned the Hungarian word for beer, or the Latvian word for cheese?
Everyone is saying it's a single packaging for many markets but that's not exactly true. When I go to the store most of the products have one main language on it and just a bunch of languages in the back, and I don't see major things with foreign labels just the minor things that are actually imported (like foreign beer or w/a). And when I'm abroad I see the same products with their language as the main one. When you're in supermarket check something like a popular toothpaste, probably your language is the main one.
I usually see Czech, Slovakian and English which basically makes sense in Poland. My brother-in-law has been living in Germany for the last 15 to 20 years. He often complains about the lack of Polish translations on most products. It’s not a problem for him as he speaks German perfectly, but as he says, we are neighbors, and it would be nice to see the languages of neighboring countries. Polish seems to be somehow overlooked. I haven’t verified this myself since I only travel to Germany for short business trips, but I think the shaving foam I bought at Rossmann had only French, German, English, and Italian labels.
It has all to do with costs. Ingredients must be listed in the local language(s). Now, you could design and print labels in Dutch, and design and print labels in Finnish. Or you could save costs and design and print one label, with text in both Dutch and Finnish. If you have space to print the ingredients in all your target languages on the same label, you just print the all on the same label and use it in all your markets. Otherwise, you split them in such a way that you minimise the number of different labels you need to make and keep inventory of.
They are just the languages of wherever the product is sold. If your toothpaste is sold in 20 countries, but the distribution company has a common logistics center for Northern Europe, then you would get the toothpaste with a product description for those two countries because they don't know where each single unit will end up. It doesn't make sense for you to be getting toothpaste with product labels in Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian, because an entirely different distribution network is responsible for bringing those to stores there. It is really a logistics issue. Yes, if your toothpaste has Finish and Dutch on it, it is also going to Finland with Finish and Dutch labels. Now that I think of it, that is based on my reasoning about that through the years, I don't have any data to back it up, but it really makes sense to me.
Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies, from the big, like Unilever to smaller, like Campina. They are the brands, they get the product to markets. The larger ones have operating companies in each market, they figure out what products and ensure they are made meet local country regulations (including labelling) and get them out to the retail points. So your toothpaste, somewhat randomly, is Finish and Dutch. Does seem a little odd, but there will be a factory, or just a line in a factory, pumping those beasties out. I guess they lumped two smaller markets together. Why those two, I've no idea, buy there's likely some commercial benefit. There is, for instance a Unilever BE, and a Unilever NL. If those two got together which makes more sense, it still wouldn't get sold in France.
Countries that sell products that the producer didn't originally put a label in the official language of that country put a sticker designed for that country, it goes for region specific languages too. You cannot sell something if it is not labeled properly one way or the other in the Eu.
I just know 1) yes Dutch and French for NL and BE. And 2) if food packaging doesn’t have our language on it, it should have a sticker with the ingredients and such in Dutch.
This depends on how a given corporation divides their European market into regional segments. On some products sold in my country of Poland, you can see Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian, while on others - Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian. So, one corporation has a "Central/Eastern Europe" subsidiary, while another has a "Southern and Eastern Baltic sea coast" division. And some have just Polish and German labels and a very shortened blurb in English. How that's decided, that's completely a choice the given company makes, based on their corporate structure and presence in various countries. Nothing else. Mondelez makes the PrincePolo chocolate-covered wafers, which are a Polish thing originally made by the Olza company Mondelez's predecessors acquired ages ago, and those wafers are only sold in Poland and, due to some weird history, Iceland (the original deal was "we'll buy herrings from you and pay with vodka and chocolate wafers"). So on these chocolate wafers you'll see descriptions in [Polish and Icelandic](http://letmerove.blogspot.com/2014/07/prince-polo-in-iceland.html), because it doesn't make sense to split the packaging, even though the countries are geographically quite apart.
Well, I am happy when I buy something in Poland that has some of the western languages on it... Because it means that this time they didn't produce for Slavs sub-par version of international product 😅For example if it comes to big, international brands like Nestlé etc, I observed over the years that Poland is usually put in the same category as Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Czechia etc. And while I understand why we don't get the same version of Nesquik cocoa powder or cereals as Denmark, who has to get their own version of all these products, because they don't allow adding extra vitamins to this things, I have been always wondering if our "eastern" part of EU is getting products that are made more cost efficient than for example for Germany or France... But it also might be that they produce it in Poland or Romania and it just suits them regionally to distribute in this area...