Random Question - Color Swatches??

Mar

25th

2008

My family recycles as much as we can. Tonight, while breaking down a cardboard box, my eye caught one of the little color swatches located on the small tab on the top of the box. I suppose I see them all the time, but I took a second glance at this one for some reason. “What is it there for?”, I asked myself.

On almost every box in my pantry, I found something similar to the swatches in the picture. Some have numbers and letters on them, others only have colors, some only have gray-scale swatches. The most common pattern is a group of squares, but some packages have circles. There isn’t a pattern from what I can tell.

What are these used for? I can only guess that they are some sort of quality control for the colors used in the printing of the box. But, that doesn’t make sense for the grays, letters, etc.

I hope it’s not a stupid question…if someone can answer it, you’ll help me sleep a little better at night.