Case Studies

Import from America

Food Labelling Services was contacted by an American based company, who wanted to import an ambient product into the EU. The product had an American label, with health and nutrition claims. American food labelling requirements are significantly different to those in the EU.

Once online payment was received by Food Labelling Services, the first check was completed, report generated and sent back to the American client within 24 hours. Due to the significant differences in American and EU food labelling requirements, the report detailed that the majority of the text had to be amended to ensure that the label was compliant with the Food Information Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 and Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on Health and Nutrition claims. As a matter of course, any additives in a product are verified that they comply with the Union list of Food Additives Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008, and the numerous amendments to this regulation.

Based on the report from Food Labelling Services, the client generated a new, EU compliant artwork, and sent this back to Food Labelling Services, with a reduced online payment for a second check.

Once again, Food Labelling Services generated a detailed report within 24 hours and sent this back to the American client. This time the label was found to be compliant to the EU regulations, and therefore will not come to the attention of the authorities, or suffer costly recall and loss of brand integrity.

Specifications review

Food Labelling Services had completed many specs across the majority of the UK retailers for an Irish branch of an international food company, and when the Product Development Manager moved companies to a smaller company, she had no hesitation in contacting Food Label Services again to complete a full specification review across their range of short shelf life products.

The brief was to review over 100 specifications for a UK retailer, and to ensure that they were firstly compliant with the Food Information Regulations (EU) 1169/2011 with particular attention to the declaration of allergens and specific ingredient requirements (for example vegetable oil no longer allowed to be declared as vegetable oil.) Nutritional information was validated, with serving sizes and number of portions per pack added. All the recipes were to be checked to ensure that all ingredients and component ingredients were compliant, and the countries of origin were reviewed against updated raw material specifications, and altered where necessary. Packaging was amended where it had changed, and storage instructions confirmed.

The specification review required careful time management and tracking to ensure that all sections of the specifications were completed to the high standards demanded, within the tight timescale. Food Labelling Services provided a dedicated tracker to manage the process efficiently, and communicated with the client on a regular basis, ensuring that there was no slippage in the required timescales.

The result was that the supplier could be confident that all the specifications had been completed accurately, therefore the pack copy labelling information would be correct. This in turn would generate packaging that was legally compliant, with no risk of expensive withdrawals, and all within the tight timescales to ensure that the packaging could be printed on time.