The Legal Requirements for Information on Food Packaging

Food labelling is an important means of providing essential information to consumers. This includes details on a food’s ingredients, composition, durability, storage and preparation requirements, any safety related information and identification of the manufacturer.

Detailed regulations are in place governing what information must be declared on pre-packaged product labels and how it must be given. There are also general rules on providing voluntary information (e.g. marketing claims).

Selling food over the internet

If you sell food over the internet you will need to provide full prepacked labelling information on both the website and the product. The information should appear on the same page as the product and be available to the consumer before they make a purchase. You do not have to include the durability date.

What is Pre-packed Food?

'Prepacked food' is defined in Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers as "… food and the packaging into which it was put before being offered for sale, whether such packaging encloses the food completely or only partially, but in any event in such a way that the contents cannot be altered without opening or changing the packaging …".

This essentially means any food put into packaging before being offered for sale. For example, a bar of chocolate, a sealed packed of crisps, a jar of sauce or a can of soup.

Mandatory v’s voluntary Information

Food packaging will also include large amounts of information that is not required by law, usually marketing copy describing the taste; this is referred to as 'voluntary information'. You can include as much voluntary information as you please, provided it is not false or misleading; however, you cannot do so at the expense of mandatory information.

What are the rules on presentation?

There is a general requirement that mandatory information is accurate, clear and not misleading. It must be presented on the packaging, on a label attached to the packaging or on a label visible through the packaging. Having mandatory information on parts of the packaging that need to be peeled up, unfolded or are only visible when the product is open is not permitted.

Mandatory information must be large enough to be legible so there is a minimum font size of an x-height of 1.2 mm, which means that the lower-case x for whatever font size you are using cannot be smaller than 1.2 mm. In the case of very small products (those whose largest surface is less than 80 cm2) the x-height is reduced to 0.9 mm (approximately font size 6 in Times New Roman). If the largest surface of your package or container has an area of less than 80 cm2, then the minimum “x-height” is reduced to 0.9mm and if it’s even smaller with an area of less than 25 cm2, then the product is exempt from the requirement to provide a mandatory nutrition declaration.

Mandatory information must also be indelible, so you must use ink that will not run or rub off. This is especially important when you are writing use-by and best-before dates by hand; choose a pen that will not run. All mandatory information must be in English although you can include labelling in other languages in addition to English labelling.

Organic Food Labelling

To label a food product as organic or use phrasing such as ‘organically grown’ the product and farming methods have to meet a series of strict guidelines.

You cannot label a product as organic if it has more than 5% non-organic ingredients.

  • Organic food labels must include:

  • Certification code.

  • Certification symbol (this will depend on which association accredits your organic produce).

  • EU organic logo.

  • The origin of raw materials.

  • Traceability code.

What mandatory Information is required?

The following information is mandatory on prepacked foods:

  • the name of the food

  • an ingredients list

  • Quantitative Ingredient Declarations (QUID) – an indication of how much of the finished product is made up of a certain ingredient; it is always expressed as a percentage. The QUID must either be given immediately after the ingredient appears in the name of the food or, more commonly, in brackets immediately after the ingredient appears in the ingredients list.

  • A Nutritional Declaration - Nutritional information has to be presented in a specific order: energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt.

  • Allergens – allergenic ingredients must be emphasised (for example in bold, italics or a different colour). Affected ingredients include gluten, eggs, milk, nuts, celery, sesame, mustard and crustaceans. This legal requirement was extended to prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food in Oct 2021. The difference between prepacked and prepacked for direct sale foods (PPDS) is that PPDS foods have been made, packaged and sold directly to consumers all on the same site e.g. a quiche made and packaged in a deli shop on the same site.

• Durability Date Marking - either a use-by or a best-before date depending on the nature of the food and how long it can be expected to stay edible.

• A Net Quantity Declaration - this means the weight of food (or volume in the case of liquids), less the weight of the packaging. The indication must be given in kilograms or grams for solids, and in litres, centilitres or millilitres for liquids (metric indication).

• The Name and Address of the FBO (Food Business Operator) – this is normally that of the manufacturer but could also be that of an importer. The food business under whose name the food is marketed is the business that is ultimately responsible for the food.

• Storage Instructions - you will only need to include storage instructions if they are necessary to ensure that the food continues to be edible and maintains its quality until the durability date that you have put on the food - for example, 'Keep refrigerated', 'Store in a cool dry place', 'Refrigerate after opening'.

• Instructions for Use (where required) - you will only need to include instructions for use if the consumer would find it difficult to use the product correctly without them; examples include cooking times for ready meals that need to be cooked in a microwave and mixing instructions for powdered products.

• Origin Marking - Origin labelling will only be required if consumers might be misled if you don't state the origin. For example if a product described as a traditional Italian recipe is made in the UK. Nutritional and Health Claims

Summary

As you can see there are many regulations covering food packaging labels, This is a summary of the main points, more detailed information can be found at the Food Standard Agency website - https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/packaging-and-labelling.

Key legislation

Peter Harrison