Food labelling and allergen law for small UK producers

Turning a hobby into a bit of income is one of the best things about a smallholding. The paperwork is the bit that puts people off, but food labelling law is more logical than it looks once you see how it splits up. Get the label right and you protect your customers, your reputation and yourself.

The core rule in Great Britain comes from assimilated Regulation 1169/2011, usually shortened to "FIC" (Food Information for Consumers). On top of that sit a handful of product-specific rules for things like jam, honey and eggs. This guide walks through what a label must show, the allergen duty that applies to everyone, and the extras for the classic smallholding products.

What a prepacked label must legally show

"Prepacked" means food put into its packaging before it goes on sale, fully or partly enclosed, and ready for sale without opening the pack. A jar of jam on a shelf, a boxed dozen eggs, a wrapped cake: all prepacked.

A prepacked label must show:

• the name of the food
• a list of ingredients (in descending order of weight) if there is more than one
• the 14 allergens, emphasised each time they appear in the ingredients list
• the net quantity in grams, kilograms, millilitres or litres (for packs over 5g or 5ml)
• a best-before or use-by date (use "use by" for food that goes off quickly and could be unsafe)
• a lot or batch number, so a product can be traced and recalled
• any special storage conditions or conditions of use
• instructions for use or cooking, if they are needed
• the name and address of the food business responsible for the food
• the country or place of origin, where it is required (honey and eggs both need it) or where leaving it out could mislead
• the quantity of a named or pictured ingredient (QUID), for example the fruit content flagged on the front
• a nutrition declaration (energy, plus fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt per 100g), unless you are exempt

One layout rule catches people out: the net quantity has to be close enough to the name of the food that you can see both at the same time. That is what "the same field of vision" means.

When you can skip the nutrition table

Good news for cottage producers. Assimilated Regulation 1169/2011, Annex V, lists foods that are exempt from the mandatory nutrition declaration. Two of those exemptions matter most on a smallholding:

• "Food, including handcrafted food, directly supplied by the manufacturer of small quantities of products to the final consumer or to local retail establishments directly supplying the final consumer."
• Food in packaging where the largest surface has an area of less than 25 cm2.

So a batch of jam you make and sell at the farm gate, at a local market or into the village shop can usually go out without a nutrition panel. The exemption is about small-scale, local, direct supply. If you scale up or sell through wider retail, take a fresh look, because it can stop applying. Allergen rules never switch off, whatever your size.

The 14 allergens, and how to declare them

Food law names 14 allergens. People can react to other things too, but only these 14 have to be declared by law when they are ingredients:

• celery
• cereals containing gluten (such as wheat, rye, barley and oats)
• crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters)
• eggs
• fish
• lupin
• milk
• molluscs (such as mussels and oysters)
• mustard
• peanuts
• sesame
• soybeans
• sulphur dioxide and sulphites, where they are present at more than ten parts per million (10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre)
• tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts)

On a written ingredients list, each allergen must be emphasised every time it appears. You can do that with bold text, a different colour, or underlining. A short note such as "for allergens, see ingredients in bold" is good practice so customers know what the emphasis means.

Natasha's Law: prepacked for direct sale (PPDS)

This is the change that catches a lot of small makers, because it sits between "fully labelled" and "loose". Since 1 October 2021:

"Any business that produces prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food is required to label it with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with allergenic ingredients emphasised within the list."

PPDS is defined as:

"Prepacked for direct sale or PPDS is food that is packaged at the same place it is offered or sold to consumers and is in this packaging before it is ordered or selected."

In plain terms: if you make it and pack it on your premises, then put it out for people to pick up or order, it is PPDS and it needs that label. Cakes boxed on your stall before a customer chooses one, bagged flapjacks on the counter, wrapped cheese from your own dairy: all PPDS.

If you sell PPDS food by distance selling (phone or internet), the on-pack rule works differently. You must make the allergen information available twice: before the purchase is completed, and again when the food is delivered.

Loose, prepacked or PPDS: the same cake, three answers

How the food is packed decides the rule, so the same product can fall into different boxes.

Which rule applies?

1. 1

   Loose (non-prepacked)

   Unpackaged food, or food you pack only after the customer has ordered it. You must still give allergen information, but you can do it by any means, including a spoken answer, as long as a clearly visible sign tells customers how to ask. A cake you slice and bag at the point of sale counts as loose.

2. 2

   Prepacked for direct sale (PPDS)

   Food you pack on site before it is ordered or selected. Needs a label with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, allergens emphasised. The same cake, pre-wrapped on the stall before anyone chooses it, is PPDS.

3. 3

   Prepacked

   Food packed by one business and supplied to another, or otherwise packed before sale for wider retail. Needs the full legal label described above.

Selling eggs

Eggs come with their own marketing standards. The rules below are for England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate guidance.

Register your poultry with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA): you must if you keep 50 or more birds, and you should even for a smaller flock. It is free. You also register your premises with APHA if you are an egg production site, which includes having 50 or more hens and selling ungraded eggs at a local public market, or having 350 or more hens.

If you sell direct to consumers for their own use, from your own farm or door to door in your local area, you do not have to grade the eggs or stamp them with a producer code. But if you sell at a local public market you must still display:

• your name
• your address
• the best-before date (a maximum of 28 days from the date of lay)
• advice to keep the eggs chilled after purchase

Where a producer code is used, its first digit shows the farming method: 0 for organic, 1 for free range, 2 for barn, 3 for cage. You cannot advertise a weight grade (for example "large") on eggs sold direct without going through a registered packing centre.

Selling honey

Honey composition and labelling in England is set by the Honey (England) Regulations 2015. A few points matter for a small apiary:

• Certain names are reserved descriptions (for example "comb honey" or "honeydew honey"); if you use one, the honey must meet the defined criteria for it.
• The regulations set detailed composition and quality criteria (things like moisture and sugar content). The exact figures live in the regulations themselves, so check them before making a compositional claim.
• Country of origin is mandatory on honey.
• If the honey is a blend from more than one country, you can list the countries or use the wording "blend of honeys from more than one country".

Selling jam, marmalade and jelly

Here is where a lot of small producers trip up, and where there is a genuinely useful workaround. In England, the Jam and Similar Products (England) Regulations 2003 make "jam", "marmalade", "jelly" and a few others reserved descriptions. You may only use the name if the recipe meets the legal composition, and if it does meet it, you must use the name.

For jam, the legal standard is:

• a soluble solids (sugar) content of not less than 60%, measured by refractometer at 20°C
• a minimum amount of fruit per 1000g of finished product: 350g for most fruit, 250g for redcurrants, blackcurrants, rosehips, rowanberries, sea buckthorns or quinces, 160g for cashew apples, 150g for ginger, and 60g for passion fruit

Marmalade must contain not less than 200g of citrus fruit per 1000g of finished product, of which at least 75g comes from the endocarp (the inner flesh). Curds and mincemeat sit higher, at 65% soluble solids.

Two extra declarations are required on jam and similar products, and both must appear in the same field of vision as the name (so, alongside the net quantity, four things share that space). The legal wording is a proportion of fruit given as "prepared with Xg of fruit per 100 g", and a sugar figure given as "total sugar content: Yg per 100 g", the sugar measured by refractometer at 20°C.

Nation by nation

• England: the compositional rules quoted here (jam, honey, eggs) are the England versions.
• Scotland: allergen rules and PPDS labelling apply from the same date (1 October 2021); Food Standards Scotland is the reference. Scotland has its own parallel composition regulations.
• Wales: allergen and PPDS rules apply; the egg guidance above covers England and Wales. Wales has its own composition regulations broadly matching England.
• Northern Ireland: allergen and PPDS rules apply (the FSA guidance covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Food moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland also sits under the Windsor Framework, and egg guidance for NI comes from DAERA.

The FIC allergen and information rules are consistent across GB, so the 14 allergens and the emphasis duty do not change by nation. It is the product-specific composition rules and some enforcement detail that vary, so check the guidance for the nation you sell in.

The traps people fall into

Local authorities (usually trading standards or environmental health) enforce these rules. They tend to advise first, then issue an improvement notice, with penalties or prosecution if that notice is ignored. Getting it right from the start is far cheaper than fixing it later.

Before you build or sell: check these

• Register your food business with your local council (do this at least 28 days before you start; it is free).
• Decide how each product is sold: loose, PPDS or prepacked, and label to match.
• Write a full ingredients list for every recipe and emphasise all 14 allergens.
• Check whether your route to market keeps you inside the small-producer nutrition exemption.
• For eggs, register with APHA and display the farm-gate or market details, including a best-before date within 28 days of lay.
• For jam, confirm you hit 60% sugar and the fruit minimum, or switch the name to "conserve" or "preserve".
• For honey, add the country of origin and check the composition rules before any claim.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and the rules change and vary by nation. Always check the current GOV.UK, Food Standards Agency or legislation.gov.uk pages linked below, and confirm anything product-specific with your local authority (trading standards or environmental health) before you sell.