What are the colored dots or circles on the food packets or products

Food labels contain red, amber, and green color coding to visually show the nutritional value of food portions.
Having high, medium or low fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt in the food product will allow people to look at this at a glance: Red means high. Amber means medium. Green means low.

As a result, people with diabetes are more likely to appear in a yellow dot food pack. It would suggest that people with diabetes are better to eat.

In the old days, there are two colors are commonly used. Those are Red and Green dots. The green dot indicates vegetarian food, and the red dot indicates non-vegetarian in the packs of food products.

We can select toothpaste by checking the bottom of the toothpaste tubes. We can see, there will be some color square of Green, Blue, Red, and Black. Green square means the paste is fully natural. Blue square means it has natural and medicinal ingredients in it. Red square means it is natural but added some chemical structure. Black square means it is purely chemical.
The red striped toothpaste indicates that toothpaste is a combination of natural and synthetic chemical-based compounds.

Insecticide cans have color codes like these. Its square doesn't stand upright. It will be in the form of kneeling in a cone base. Half of them (like the triangle) are colors, their color codes. The colors refer to the effects of chemicals, hazardous behavior and the way they are stored.
Red: - Potential for fire. So be careful not to overheat.
Yellow: - Reactive. Reactions occur in man.
Blue: - A health hazard. It is endangered to human health.
White: - Contact accident.
Green: - Can be stored anywhere - General storage

In addition to this, there is another type of color line in tins, paper, and board packing. It indicates the design colors of the box or packing. It does not affect the common man. It is only for its company. It is called "process control patches."

Many of us might have seen these little coloured circles on the food packagings. They are called "printer's colour blocks" or "process control patches". These dots are actually for the knowledge of the printer. They will inform the printer whether the bags or packages are printed correctly or not. They will be also useful to see the correctness of the design they used on the packet.

The symbols are of no use to the consumers. Many of us never notice them also. But they are important for the manufacturing process( the packaging printers)

We will also see such coloured rings on the newspapers also and the sequence is specific for each newspaper and that will be useful for the editor to know about the correctness of the printing.

The printer checks these circles to know the colour combination that is to be applied. Then using a scanner he will know whether the package conforms to the colour scheme given by the customer.

Printing of these circles is not mandatory. That is why we will never see them on some boxes. But many large-scale, production lines use this system.

Some websites say that these dots will give some information about the quality of the product. But there is no proof to believe those. The way to know about the ingredients in your food is by reading the product label. These marks may indicate that the printing is correct.

Colour codes indicate certain information to the consumers and traders. They help to avoid confusion in understanding the technical jargoned or misleading information about the products. Colour code help even the illiterate to understand clearly about the products.
In India, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. , Government of India , sets various standards of foods packaged and sold in India. They give Guidelines on Labelling of Food Products. The guidelines are for manufacturers to make declarations on the product package label in order to enable for preventing adulteration and making food safe. The guidelines are also meant serve to avoid confusion in the minds of consumers and traders. The declarations relate to the contents, origin source(vegetarian or non-vegetarian origin), additives, nutrition composition, country of origin, etc. quantity etc.etc. To make them more easily noted and understood by even illiterate customer certain colour codlings and patterns are also prescribed. They are to be displayed in proximity to the name or brand name of the product or at certain prominent places on the packet as prescribed

The major colour codes we come across in our daily life are about declaration of the product as :
1. Declaration regarding Vegetarian or Non-Vegetarian Food

(A) Vegetarian food: To Indicate the product is vegetarian food, the symbol is a green colour filled circle, inside a square with green outline.
(B) Non-Vegetarian food: the prescribed symbol is a brown colour filled circle inside a brown colour outlined square.

2. Content of fats and sugar
Red colour indicates high fat/sugar
Amber means medium
Green means low fat and sugar and thus healthier.

Many Non-food items are also colour coded.

For example Toxicity indication codes:

We might have seen the peculiar double triangle shapes in pesticides etc. They are actually square standing on one of the vertex corner and the whole divided horizontally into two triangle area. The lower one is coloured and upper half triangle is blank. The colours vary from Green, Blue, Yellow and Red indicating the rising intensity of toxicity as slight toxic to extremely toxic.

Certain other items are also colour coded as per the danger they pose. For example radioactive materials were coded with black and yellow propeller (trefoil) symbol.

As per the Packaged Commodity (Legal Metrology) Rules, 2011 the packaged food products had to be marked on the packet either with the green dot or brown dot which indicates that the inside product is either lacto-vegeterian food or non-lacto-vegeterian for. These symbols were in use since 2006 but they became mandatory with this 2011 stipulation. This was a great step forward to help the buyer to identify the basic nature of the product as in our country there is clear cut distinction between the vegetarian and non-vegeterian people. This was a mandatory requirement and has helped the consumer to identify the type of food and its origin just on a glance.

Subsequently in the year 2014, the Department of Consumer Affairs added that these colour code dots should also be marked on other type of items so that the consumer should be aware of their origin. These items were soap, shampoos, tooth pastes and other cosmetics and toiletries. Depending upon the origin of the products, vegetarian or non-vegeterian, the colour code was to be displayed on the top of the principal display panel so that it is easily seen by the buyer. These developments were welcomed by the consumers as well as animal lovers across the country. It was also thought as a great initiative under the right to information to the consumers.

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), is now contemplating to display another colour code that is red for the food items which are high in fat, sugar or salt levels in them.

Coloured Circles on the food packaging are called process control patching. The dots actually permit the printer to check that the bags were printed in a proper way utilising the designs of packaging.
They may be classified as Yellow dots, Green dots and Red dots indicating the quality and purity of the materials.
Yellow dots signify that that the product is deficient in one or more components.
Green dots signify that the server is communicating with the clients and the policy is being followed religiously.
Red dots indicate that you are in trouble since no specification has been updated . There is a gap between the client server and the components being used. One or more components need to be mixed properly.