More than 40 food products from over 20 manufacturers, ranging from dairy products and soft drinks to vegetable oil and meat, now have digital food labeling on their packages as part of a pilot program launched this year, the National Health Commission's Department of Food safety standards, risk surveillance and assessment said on Tuesday.

As the public's awareness of food safety and knowledge about health and nutrition has grown, consumers are paying more attention to food labels and trying to make wiser food choices. However, there is only limited space for traditional food labels printed on packages.

As a result, the commission launched a pilot program this year that asked participating food makers to print QR codes on packaging. Consumers can scan the code to access full information about a product.

The program was jointly rolled out with the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, the China National Food Industry Association, the Beijing Municipal Health Commission and GS1 China, among other institutions.

More products with digital food labeling are expected to hit the shelves by the end of this year, the authorities said in Beijing on Tuesday.

Sun Baoguo, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a former president of Beijing Technology and Business University, said Chinese consumers' ability to understand food labels still needed to improve and more efforts should be made to improve the rules governing food labels.

He called for accelerated efforts to revise the national protocol for the labeling of prepackaged food.

The authorities said that in an updated protocol they plan to recommend putting digital labels on food packages and clarify related requirements.

Chen Junshi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief consultant at the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, said that research into digital labeling was at an early stage worldwide, and China's move to run a trial of digital labeling was among the first in the world.