GovWire

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 youre not a food business and youre providing food for an occasional event, like a village fair.

Labelling pre-packed food

Pre-packed food is any food thats put into packaging before being put on sale and that cannot be altered without opening or changing the packaging.

Information to display on labels or packaging

You must display the following information (mandatory information) on the product packaging or on a label attached to the packaging:

• the name of the food
• the quantitative ingredients declaration (QUID), where needed
• a list of ingredients (including allergens)
• the weight or volume of the food (net quantity)
• a best before or use by date
• the name and address of the food business operator (FBO) responsible for the food information
• the alcoholic strength by volume (as a percentage) on drinks containing over 1.2% alcohol by volume

Find out how to label spirit drinks that you plan to sell in the UK.

How to display information on labels or 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):

• the name of the food
• the net quantity of the food
• alcoholic strength by volume (for drinks containing over 1.2% alcohol)

You must print all the mandatory information using a font with a minimum x-height of 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.

Add information about country of origin and special storage conditions

State a products 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.

Label allergens

You must give information on allergens in food. This includes substances produced or derived from allergens or used in processing the food.

Allergens are:

• cereals containing gluten, such as wheat (including spelt and khorasan wheat), rye, barley and oats
• crustaceans, for example prawns, crabs, lobster, crayfish
• eggs
• fish
• peanuts
• soybeans
• milk (including lactose)
• nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, pistachio nuts, pecan nuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts and macadamia or Queensland nuts)
• celery (including celeriac)
• mustard
• sesame seeds
• sulphur dioxide or sulphites, if they are more than 10 milligrams per kilogram or 10 milligrams per litre in the finished product
• lupin, including lupin seeds and flour
• molluscs, for example mussels, oysters, snails and squid

Read the full guidance on food allergen labelling.

List the ingredients

You must put a list of ingredients (including information on additives) on the packaging of all pre-packed products except:

• fresh fruit and vegetables that have not been peeled, cut or similarly treated
• carbonated water that is labelled as carbonated water
• fermented vinegars derived from single, basic product (such as white wine) with no added ingredients
• cheese, butter, fermented milk or cream if its only ingredients are lactic products, food enzymes and microorganism cultures essential to its manufacture
• products consisting of a single ingredient where the name of the food is the same as the name of the ingredient or clearly identifies what the ingredient is (for example, peanuts or eggs)
• products on which no side of the packaging or container has a surface area larger than 10cm squared
• products in glass bottles for reuse that have food information indelibly marked on them and have no other labelling (for example, milk bottles)
• any alcoholic drink containing over 1.2% alcohol by volume

You must put the ingredients list under a heading that contains the word ingredients.

If youre 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).

Other information in the ingredients list

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 its a compound ingredient (such as cheese) which has had one of its constituent parts irradiated (for example, the milk used to make the cheese).

Give a quantitative ingredients declaration (QUID)

The QUID tells a customer the percentage of particular ingredients contained in a food product.

When to display the QUID

You must show a QUID if the ingredient:

• is in the name of the food (for example, the blackberry and apple in a blackberry and apple pie)
• is usually associated with that name by the consumer (mutton in a Lancashire hotpot)
• is emphasised by words, pictures or graphics on the label (for example, if theres a picture of blackberries on the label)
• characterises a food and distinguishes it from products with a similar name or appearance

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:

• have only been used in small quantities as flavouring
• are used in varying proportions and can be labelled as fruit, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs or spices (such as in a vegetable soup)
• already have a quantity shown on the label as a drained net weight

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 p

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