Whether you’re taking a walk through a supermarket or a convenience store, it’s likely that you’ve seen food labels on the various products - whether it be confectionary, vegetables or even baked goods.

If you’re considering selling a food product, it’s essential that you’ve got a food label on it. Food labels not only have a plethora of information on them – such as the ingredients but it’s also got nutrition facts and more.

Here, we’ll mention in greater detail why food labels are important and some facts you need to consider when it comes to creating your own food labels.

The benefits of food labels

Some benefits of having food labels include

It provides consumers with information

Consumers will have access to a plethora of information such as the daily calories, allergy information, proteins, sugars as well as vitamins. This is especially important for consumers that may have allergies to a certain product. In addition, this is also required as per the Food Allergen Labelling and Consumer Protection Act.

Regulated by laws

Food labels are regulated by laws - while this is dependent on the country, the law enforces a lot of these food labelling laws and it is vital that those operating within the food and drink space abide by these laws.

With that, a nutrition label is also required on all of your food and beverage products - this includes all of the ingredients that within the product.

Compliancy

Since the food labels are regulated by laws, it’s essential that you’re always reviewing your food labels to ensure that they’re compliant. Certain words may also be regulated, so that’s something to take into consideration.

Examples of certain terminology include ‘free-range’, ‘organic’ etc. If you have those words within your food label, make sure that you’re checking that it complies with the laws.

Other considerations

Something else that you’d need to take into consideration is a UPC. A UPC is essentially a bar code that you can print on your food labels with a label printer. Some information that you need to include on your food labels include:

• The name of the food

• The weight of the food container

• The name of your company

• The address of your company

• Any manufacturing information

• The nutrition label

It’s vital that if you have a nutrition label so that customers are able to see what’s in the food label and decide if they want to purchase the product. If your food label doesn’t have a nutrition label, it can be audited and your product could be removed from stores.

Getting started with your food label

As seen from the above, food labels are important - especially if you’re looking to supply your product to a supermarket or a convenience store. It’s important that you take the various requirements of your food label into consideration, along with the ingredients, nutrition information and more.

When it comes to printing your food label, you can choose to outsource it or have it printed in-house with food label printers - the choice is yours!