Labelling Unstuck: Allergens, Nutritional Data & the Law

Obesity is a serious issue and in the UK the number of emergency hospital admissions from obesity related illnesses has increase 5 fold in ten years*. Food allergy statistics are graver still. In the UK alone they are estimated to affect 2 million people - 1-2% of adults and 5-8% of children - not to mention the millions more who suffer from food intolerances.

And over the past decade the number of people admitted to hospital with food allergy related illnesses has increased 600%!** Incidents can quite literary be a matter of life and death with both food allergies and obesity being extremely complicated issues in their own rights, and subject to countless factors and dynamics.

Diet is perhaps the one presiding constant so last year the government introduced new laws relating to the ways in which food products are detailed on packaging and labelling to support better informed choices for everyone.

So What Changed?

The legislation is called the Food Information Regulation (or FIR) and came into effect on December 14, 2014. Since this time, allergens can be found printed in bold within the ingredients list of all prepacked products. What’s more, all food providers by law (including take away restaurants, fast food vans and event caterers) must now be able to advise consumers if their food contains any of the following allergens:

• Cereals containing gluten 
• Crustaceans 
• Eggs 
• Fish 
• Peanuts
• Soy beans
• Milk 
• Nuts 
• Celery 
• Sesame seeds
• Sulphur Dioxide
• Sulphites
• Lupin• Molluscs

And the FIR doesn't just cover allergens, it outlines the legal requirements of almost every aspect of information given on food packaging and labelling from the size of text, to the language used - even the layout.

Are There More Changes to Come?

The FIR outlines additional legislation that will come into effect in December 2016, whereby prepacked foods will have to state: energy value; fat; saturates; carbohydrate; sugars; protein; and salt (in that order, per 100g and usually in tabular form) on pack. 

Some providers are also including this information in the form of Reference Intakes (RIs), the new government approved voluntary standard for displaying front of pack nutritional information on labels and packaging.

RIs replaced the Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) system and are useful guidelines based on the approximate amount of nutrients and energy you need for a healthy, balanced diet each day. They demonstrate the amount of energy, fat, saturates, sugars and salt your products contain. For example, the label above (taken from a box of apple pies) shows that each pie will provide you with 19.2 grams of sugars, which represents 21% of your RI for sugars. In other words, one pie contains about a fifth of an adult's RI for sugars. Traffic light colour coding can be used to highlight if products contain high (red), medium (amber) or low (green) levels of fat, saturates, sugars or salt.

Remaining FIR Friendly AND Compliant

While adhering to legislation and best practice is essential, we don’t believe it should slow providers down, so last autumn we updated our LabelLogic Live programs ahead of the changes. This made the software ‘FIR friendly’ as well as fully compliant.

A new function called AutoAllergen was added to LabelLogic Live which automatically bolds allergens within the ingredients list. This is entirely unique to Planglow and saves users from hours of data entry. For providers of fresh made (as opposed to prepacked) foods, we added a quick-tick-box which allows the provider to add allergens to their labelling simply by checking the appropriate ingredient(s). NutriLogic received a new FIR compliant nutritional box too.

The software updates were accompanied by new legislatively compliant label designs. Amongst these products were larger sized sheet and roll labels in both plain and branded finishes, plus a dedicated Allergen Label. Ideal for back of house use, the Allergen Label displays a list of kitchen prep details + allergens for the caterer to manually tick as appropriate. It was developed to highlight allergens, ensure transparency, improve kitchen practices and safeguard consumer safety. It was also designed to offer good adhesion in fridges and freezers (-40°C to +50°C), with the easy peel adhesive removing from most materials down to-2°C.

 A second software update took place this spring (2015) whereby NutriLogic received a new RI function - this means that providers can now include reference intakes on their products. We decided to display RIs in the most common layout - five colour coded lozenges - so nutrient levels are green for low, orange for medium, or red for high. And for providers using black and white printers, ‘Low’, ‘Med’ and ‘High’ wording can be added as appropriate to ensure labelling remains compliant. 

Looking to the Future 

As part of the Food Information Regulation, from next December providers of prepacked foods will be required to include nutritional information on pack. It is more than likely that further measures will be introduced too and it is for precisely this reason that we continue to monitor both the market and proposed legislation to ensure that our labels and software continue to provide the best solutions for everyone.

If you are concerned about the legalities of your labelling either now or come December 2016, we would recommend giving your account manager or our customer service team a call. We have produced a FIR guide too which can be found here. You may also want to read last month’s blog post - Life Hacks: Labelling & Display Items - for some additional ideas on how to display allergen and other food information. Alternatively, visit our website for more information on the products we offer.