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Find out the information you must give to customers on food products and how to give it.
This guidance tells you the information you must provide with food products, so you comply with the rules on food information to consumers.
These rules apply to you if you operate a food business, even if you give food to consumers for free. You do not need to give food information to customers if you’re not a food business and you’re providing food for an occasional event, like a village fair.
Pre-packed food is any food that’s put into packaging before being put on sale and that cannot be altered without opening or changing the packaging.
You must display the following information (mandatory information) on the product packaging or on a label attached to the packaging:
Information on labels must be difficult to remove (indelible).
Your labelling must allow the customer to see all the following information at the same time (it must be in the same field of vision):
You must print all the mandatory information using a font with a minimum x-height of 1.2 millimetres.
The x-height (6) must be 1.2 millimetres
If the largest surface area of packaging is less than 80cm squared, you can use a minimum x-height of 0.9mm.
State a product’s country of origin or place of provenance on the label if the words or pictures on the packaging imply that it comes from somewhere else. For example, if a food has a tartan wrapper but was not made in Scotland, you need to put the actual country of origin on the label.
The ‘country of origin’ tells the consumer the country in which the food was produced. The ‘place of provenance’ may be a group of countries or a region within a country.
Some country of origin rules have changed. Read guidance on country of origin labelling.
Describe on the label any special storage conditions or instructions if consumers will need them to use the food appropriately. For example, a product may need the words ‘keep refrigerated and use within 3 days of opening’ or ‘do not reheat’.
If a product has been packaged in a protective atmosphere, include the words ‘packaged in a protective atmosphere’ on the label or packaging.
You must give information on allergens in food. This includes substances produced or derived from allergens or used in processing the food.
Allergens are:
Read the full guidance on food allergen labelling.
You must put a list of ingredients (including information on additives) on the packaging of all pre-packed products except:
You must put the ingredients list under a heading that contains the word ‘ingredients’.
If you’re not sure whether your particular food product is exempt from needing an ingredients list, contact your local trading standards office.
The name of ingredients should follow the rules set out for the name of the food. For example, you must only call an ingredient ‘jam’ if it meets the compositional standards for jam.
You must list the ingredients by weight from the most to the least that your product contains (based on the ingredient weights at the time of manufacture).
Put ‘(nano)’ after the name of any engineered nanomaterial used as an ingredient.
Label foods treated with ionising radiation with the words ‘irradiated’ or ‘treated with ionising radiation’.
You must also show if an ingredient has been irradiated, even if it’s a compound ingredient (such as cheese) which has had one of its constituent parts irradiated (for example, the milk used to make the cheese).
The QUID tells a customer the percentage of particular ingredients contained in a food product.
You must show a QUID if the ingredient:
For example, lasagne made with pork must show the QUID for the pork because it characterises the product and distinguishes it from a lasagne (usually made with beef).
You do not need to give a QUID if the ingredients:
You do not need a QUID for ingredients that can vary in quantity without altering the character of the food or distinguishing it from similar foods. For example, you do not need to show a QUID for flour in a flour tortilla.
You must give the meat QUID when you sell loose or pre-packed-for-direct-sale products that contain meat and other ingredients (except in a catering environment). You must display the QUID on a label on the food or display it clearly where the customer can see it when they are choosing the product.
On pre-packed food, you must give this information either:
You must usually show either a ‘best before’ or a ‘use by’ date on the packaging or label of pre-packed food products.
Only show a ‘use by’ date where there’s a safety issue with eating the food after this date. It’s a criminal offence to sell food that’s past its ‘use by’ date.
Read Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) guidance on date marking
You do not need to show a ‘best before’ or ‘use by’ date, but you must include a lot number on:
If you’re not sure whether your particular food product is exempt from showing a date of minimum durability, contact your local trading standards office.
You must include a business name and address on the packaging or food label of pre-packed food products. This must be either:
Pre-packaged food or caseins sold in NI must include a NI or EU FBO address. If the FBO is not in NI or EU, include the address of your importer, based in NI or the EU.
You can continue to use an EU, GB or NI address for the FBO on pre-packaged food or caseins sold in GB until 30 September 2022.
From 1 October 2022, pre-packaged food or caseins sold in GB must include a UK address for the FBO. If the FBO is not in the UK, include the address of your importer, based in the UK.
The address needs to be a physical address where your business can be contacted by mail. You cannot use an email address or phone number.
You must label pre-packed food products with nutritional information if:
You can choose to provide nutrition information on other food products.
When you provide nutrition information, you must follow the guidance on nutrition labelling.
Nutrition labelling has been compulsory on most pre-packed foods since December 2016.
You must tell the consumer if your product contains:
You must put the words, ‘with sweetener(s)’ by the name of food products containing sweeteners
You must put the words, ‘with sugar(s) and sweetener(s)’ by the name of food products containing both sugars and sweeteners.
To comply with the rules on labelling additives, you must put the following warnings on the label if the product contains aspartame:
You must tell the consumer if a product contains glycyrrhizinic acid, its ammonium salt or the liquorice plant (Glycyrrhiza glabra). Put the following words immediately after the ingredients list (or by the name of the food if there’s no ingredients list):
You must label drinks that contain more than 150 milligrams per litre of caffeine with the words ‘High caffeine content. Not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women’.
This also applies to concentrated or dried drinks that will contain more than 150 milligrams per litre of caffeine when reconstituted. It does not apply to tea and coffee drinks if ‘tea’ or ‘coffee’ are in the name of the food.
Where caffeine has been added to a food product (other than a drink) for a physiological purpose, you must put the words ‘Contains caffeine. Not recommended for children or pregnant women’ on the label.
You must put these warnings in the same field of vision as the name of the food and include the caffeine content in milligrams per 100 grams or per 100 millilitres in brackets after the warning.
You must label foods that contain more than 10% added polyols with the words ‘excessive consumption may produce laxative effects’.
You must label foods with added phytosterols, phytosterol esters, phytostanols or phytostanol esters with all of the following:
You must put the amount of added phytosterols, phytosterol esters, phytostanols or phytostanol esters the food contains in the list of ingredients (as a percentage or the number of grams of free plant sterols or plant stanols per 100g or 100ml).
If you sell food products online or by phone or mail order, you must make the required information available for free to the customer before they buy (except the durability and freezing dates) and when it is delivered to them.
You must pass on certain information about products if you are an FBO selling food products to other businesses, not to the final consumer. At the end of the supply chain, whoever is selling a food product to the final consumer must have all the information they need to provide.
If the food will be sold non pre-packed to the final consumer, you must provide all the information required for non pre-packed foods.
If the food will be sold pre-packed to the final consumer, you must provide all information required for pre-packed food. This applies even if the pre-packing will be done by someone else after you sell it.
If you do not know how the food will be sold to the final consumer, you should assume that it will be pre-packed.
You must give the information on the pre-packaging if the packaging will not be changed before the product is sold to the final consumer.
If you’re not responsible for the final pre-packaging of the product or it is non pre-packed, you must provide the information either:
You must send your customer the commercial documents before or at the same time as you send them the food.
You must also put extra information on any external packaging that you use to supply food that meets either of the following conditions:
You must label your external packaging with:
Some businesses that you sell to may ask you for additional, voluntary labelling information.
You’ll need to make any required labelling changes for goods sold in GB by 30 September 2022.
Local authorities in GB will be responsible for enforcement of labelling changes.
Your label can contain other information if you need to comply with labelling requirements for another market.
Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, goods sold in NI continue to follow EU rules for food labelling. There are changes to labelling that apply from 1 January 2021
However, the UK government recognises that businesses will need time to adapt to these new labelling rules.
The UK government is working with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and district councils in NI on an enforcement approach of new labelling requirements on the NI market that takes these challenges into account.
In line with previous rule changes for labelling, there’s a proportionate and risk-based enforcement approach particularly for:
This approach is being implemented in a way which supports businesses as they adapt to the requirements over time.
In most cases, an officer from your local authority may issue you with an improvement notice if you have not complied with food regulations. Improvement notices cannot be issued in relation to net weight contraventions, but you can be prosecuted if you break net weight rules.
You’re committing an offence and may be prosecuted if you do not comply with an improvement notice.
You may be prosecuted (without first being given an improvement notice) if you break the rules on allergens.
An improvement notice will tell you what your business is doing wrong, what rules have been broken, how to comply and by when. It will also tell you how to appeal against an improvement notice.
You can continue to operate if you get an improvement notice, but you must do what it tells you to do within the time it specifies.
If you’re a business and want advice on labelling, contact your local trading standards office.
This guidance is for the rules in the FIC and FIR. Other rules also apply to food labelling and composition.
You can learn about how to label your food products by completing a free online food labelling e-training course.
Update to link to WRAP date marking guidance. Added related guides on Labelling loose food, Naming food products Country of Origin information for meat and fish, Meat Products: sell them legally in England.
Removed definition of foods pre-packed for direct sale. Food Standards Agency guidance provides accurate definition.
Removed: You must also put the words ‘may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children’ on products that contain: allura red (E129) carmoisine (E122) ponceau 4R (E124) quinoline yellow (E104) sunset yellow (E110) tartrazine (E102) Removed „You must also follow rules on how you [tell a consumer if the food contains genetically modified (GM) ingredients](http://www.food.gov.uk/science/novel/gm/gm-labelling).“ This is not in FIC or FIR.
First published.
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