What Must Be on a UK Food Label? The Full Checklist

Every prepacked food sold in the UK needs a specific set of information on the label by law. Miss one and the product isn't just imperfect, it's non-compliant, regardless of how good the food is.

Here's what has to appear, in plain terms, plus where founders most often get it wrong.

The name of the food

Not your brand name. The name of the food itself, clear enough that a customer knows what they're buying without opening the pack. If there's a legally defined name for your product category, you have to use it. Otherwise a customary name works if one exists and is genuinely understood by consumers, like "BLT" for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Failing that, you need a descriptive name specific enough to distinguish your product from anything it could be confused with.

If your food has been processed in a way that changes what it is, that has to be in the name too. "Smoked bacon," "salted peanuts," "dried fruit," not just "bacon" if it's smoked.

A full ingredients list

Any product with two or more ingredients needs a list, headed "Ingredients" or something that clearly includes the word. List order matters: descending order of weight, based on the quantities used when the food was made. A handful of foods are exempt, mostly single-ingredient products like fresh fruit and carbonated water.

Allergen emphasis

Where any of the 14 legally recognised allergens appear as ingredients, they need to be visually distinguished, consistently, everywhere they show up in the list. Bold is the common choice but isn't mandated specifically. What matters is consistency: the same allergen has to be emphasised the same way every single time it appears, not bolded in one product and missed in another.

QUID (Quantitative Ingredient Declaration)

This one gets missed constantly by smaller brands. If an ingredient appears in your product name, is emphasised anywhere on the label, or is essential to what makes the product recognisable as itself, you generally need to state what percentage of the product it makes up. A "chicken and mushroom pie" needs a QUID for chicken, and probably mushroom too, because both are named in the title.

Net quantity

Any packaged food over 5g or 5ml needs its net quantity stated. If the food is packed in liquid, you need to declare the drained weight, not just the total including liquid. There are narrow exemptions, mostly for food sold by count where the units are clearly visible and countable from outside the packaging.

A date mark

Either a "best before" or a "use by" date, depending on the product. "Use by" is for food that becomes unsafe after a point, "best before" is for food that's still safe but may decline in quality.

Name and address of the food business

A real, physical UK address where the business can be contacted by post. An email address or phone number isn't sufficient. This has to be either the address of the business the food is marketed under, or the importer's address if the food comes from outside the UK.

Country of origin, where its absence would mislead

You don't always need this, but you do wherever leaving it out would give a false impression. The FSA's own example is a Melton Mowbray pork pie made in Italy: if the name implies a specific origin the food doesn't have, you need to correct that impression with an origin declaration. Meat and fish have their own specific country of origin rules that apply more broadly.

Preparation instructions, if needed

If your product needs to be cooked or prepared in a particular way to be used safely or as intended, that has to be on the label, including oven temperature and timing where relevant.

Nutrition declaration

Most prepacked food needs a nutrition declaration in a specific format, covering energy and six nutrients, given per 100g or 100ml. There are some exemptions, and the exact triggering rules are worth checking against your specific product category rather than assumed.

A handful of ingredient-specific warnings

Depending on what's in the product, you may also need to flag sweeteners, added sugars, aspartame, colourings, liquorice, caffeine, or polyols. These are easy to miss because they're not part of the "standard" checklist most people mentally run through.

Presentation rules that apply to all of the above

None of this is useful if nobody can read it. Mandatory information needs a minimum text x-height of 1.2mm (0.9mm on very small packaging), has to be easy to see, and can't be hidden, cut off, or obscured by other text or images on the pack. A beautifully designed label that fails the legibility rule is still non-compliant.

How this connects to PPDS

Everything above describes a standard prepacked food label. If your product is packaged on-site before a customer chooses it, rather than packaged elsewhere and distributed, you're likely dealing with PPDS rules instead, which have their own, narrower set of requirements focused specifically on allergens. Worth confirming which category applies before you build your label around the wrong checklist.

Where founders actually get this wrong

Not usually on the big, obvious items like name and ingredients. It's the secondary requirements, QUID, ingredient-specific warnings, the legibility rule, that get skipped because they're not top of mind when someone's briefing a designer for the first time. And once a label's approved and printed, nobody goes back to check it against the full list again until something forces the question, a retailer flag, an inspection, or a recall.

Building the label against the full requirement from the start avoids most of this. Create your digital label and work through every mandatory field for your category before it goes anywhere near a designer or a print run.