Food Label Requirements and Translations

Your food label partner for compliance and market access.

As consumer demands for transparency and healthier choices grow, governments and regulatory bodies are increasingly focusing on food labelling reforms. The key to success is understanding, and adhering to, the food labelling regulations of the different countries you’re planning to export to.

When developing food products for sale, or looking to export your product to other countries, it’s important to add food labelling to your plan of action. Food label planning isn’t just about the design, it’s about the content, too. Accurate ingredient labels, allergen information, nutritional information, and so on, are a regulatory obligation intended to keep consumers safe.

Around the world, each country has its own unique food labelling laws. Understanding the requirements of each of your chosen markets can be challenging. For example, the terminology used can differ greatly from country to country

When it comes to food compliance, the onus lies with the retailer. They must comply with the food label regulations of each country they export to. This includes ensuring linguistic translations are accurate and compliant, including allergen information translation and food additives translation.

Ensure your label compliance by seeking expert advice. At NSF, we can help you navigate food regulations and labelling requirements – and provide official food label translations – of each country you’re exporting to, so you can focus on growing your business.

Food labelling requirements, from content to design, vary from country to country. So too does the terminology used. For example, countries in Europe require different recycling information which may be mandatory for some countries, but not for others. Food label requirements and terminology will differ in the EU, the UK, and other countries and regions around the world – there’s no one-size-fits-all.

Our expert team can help you get started and guide you through the food labelling requirements and terminology of your target markets. This would include a full label review to ensure you comply with the relevant food regulations.

Depending on the destination country, compliant food label design might include:

• Legal name
• Nutrition panel
• Ingredient list
• Allergens
• Country of origin
• Weight statement.

Food label adaptations might include anything from the type of information included to the position of information on packaging, and even the font size. It’s also important to continually monitor countries for regulatory updates and changes, which might require recipes to be reformulated, and labels amended accordingly.

Interpreting changes can be challenging, but our experts can help you unravel complexities, understand exactly how they apply to your business, and what you need to do to achieve and maintain compliance.

Food labelling management requires knowledge, understanding and dedication, especially if you’re exporting to more than one country.

For example, a recipe that might comply with Italian food regulations and food labelling requirements might not comply with UK food regulations.

With our expert advice we may be able to help you save costs by achieving one EU/UK label. It’s therefore important to factor this in when making business decisions concerning plans for exporting prepared food products.

The reality is that food labelling regulations are not black and white; there are many grey areas that benefit from expert insight to interpret and understand. Here at NSF, we have a wide pool of experts to draw on who can bring clarity to the grey.

Our food and beverage consulting services can help you achieve and maintain food labelling compliance in all your markets, new and existing.

At NSF, we offer expert advice to ensure you comply with regulations relevant to your food and beverage products, enabling you to expand your reach and take full advantage of new market opportunities:

Raw material and/or ingredient check and formula compliance: We will check each food raw material for its components and treatments used before confirming whether or not it complies with relevant regulations and can be sold in its intended markets. We’ll also review the recipe breakdown of your product to confirm that its ingredients and percentages comply with its product category.

Claims risk assessment (innovation support): When innovating new products, our food regulatory experts will identify the risks and opportunities associated with specific food claims, regulated or otherwise. And we’ll interpret existing regulations and – even in the absence of regulations – advise you on how authorities will respond.

Nutritional labelling development and/or checks: Our experts in nutritional consulting will coordinate nutritional analysis testing or create calculated nutritional data based on your formula and raw materials. We can also review nutritional values and provide conversions for different countries, so you are sure to meet nutritional label requirements.

Pack copy development: Getting pack copy right is essential. We can help you understand and generate the mandatory information for your product label, helping to bridge the gap between specification information and the final label.

Regulatory translations: It’s important that meaning isn’t lost in translation. We offer food label translation services for export, using local expertise to advise you on legislative and linguistic corrections for both mandatory and voluntary text.

Artwork compliance review: Our artwork management services, which includes a full label artwork review, will ensure your products are represented correctly and the food label complies with regulations and guidelines in your chosen markets.

Packaging material regulations: We check your primary and secondary packaging against relevant food packaging regulations, including recyclability and waste disposal logo requirements.

Restaurant menu development: With allergen concerns growing worldwide, our experts will ensure your restaurant menu complies with regulations around allergens, additives and marketing text. We can also provide analysis to support nutritional information.

Specification management: For effective implementation and consistency, quality and traceability, our regulatory experts will support the creation and/or management of your products and/or raw material specifications. We can create technical specifications documents or build them within your software systems. Our team can also assist with regulatory approvals of your specifications as part of your document management system.

Horizon scanning: Should a regulation change, our regulatory alerts review highlights how the its changing. and what this means for your business and product compliance. Designed to meet your specific scenario, this can be based on specific countries and on timings as directed by you.

Specialist market insight: Our data-driven, market-intelligence solution, powered by an advanced digital tool, coupled with insight from our regulatory experts, will give you actionable information on how to expand successfully. You can also benefit from our regulatory horizon scanning. We’ll provide you with regulatory alerts that highlight how specific regulations are changing and what the change means for you.

• Step 1. Get in touch with our team.
• Step 2. We’ll ask you for some information to help us understand your requirements.
• Step 3. Once we have an understanding of the scope of your needs, we’ll send you a quotation.
• Step 4. If you approve the quote, we’ll issue a proposal for you to sign. This will include our scope, deliverables, fees, and terms and conditions.
• Step 5. We’ll arrange a kick-off meeting to set expectations for deliverables and timing, and ensure we have received all the information we need to complete the work.
• Step 6. The project work begins. We’ll be in touch every now and then with questions and to clarify information as necessary.
• Step 7. We complete our work before issuing you with the output for your review and subsequent action.

We help you build robust and compliant product launches for long-term success.

Meet regulations worldwide and launch your products with confidence, using NSF’s seamlessly integrated approach.

A trusted and agile extension of your team, we work with you to ensure your product labels and claims are accurate, so consumers can make informed choices, and your products comply with specific regulations, geographies and languages.