Food sold in the United Kingdom must carry a label compliant with UK food information rules: the name, ingredients with allergens emphasised, dates, the FBO's details with a UK address and the other mandatory elements. At the Milton Keynes warehouse we complete and correct labels after the goods arrive: relabelling, printing and repacking before the batch travels to the consignee.
What must a UK food label contain?
The catalogue is longer than it seems: the product name, an ingredient list with allergens emphasised within it, net quantity, durability dates, storage conditions, the responsible food business operator's details with an address in the UK or Northern Ireland, and for some products the country of origin and nutrition information. For goods from Poland the most common gap is precisely the UK FBO address and the English ingredient list. The address requirement is covered in detail in food labels for export to the UK.
Who does Natasha's Law apply to?
The PPDS rule covers food packed at the same place where it is offered to the consumer: sandwiches packed on site, salads, baked goods in packaging. Since 1 October 2021 such food must carry a label with the name and a full ingredient list in which allergens are clearly emphasised. For a Polish exporter the impact is indirect but real: British food service and retail customers demand complete ingredient and allergen data from suppliers, because without it they cannot meet their own duties. Gaps in the specification come back to the supplier as held orders.
How does relabelling work in Milton Keynes?
- The consignee or exporter provides the approved label artwork: EN ingredients, allergens, the FBO address, codes.
- We verify the artwork against the batch specification: dates, batch numbers, weights.
- We print the labels and apply them to unit or outer packaging.
- When packaging changes, we run a full repack with segregation and hygiene maintained.
- The batch returns to the dispatch zone with documentation of the operation.
The GS1 and SSCC logistics codes used in retail deliveries are described in relabelling and GS1 codes in the UK.
Why fix labels in the UK and not in Poland?
Because requirements often arrive too late. A retail chain can refine the label format after the goods have shipped, an ingredient translation comes back with comments, and printing a new packaging batch in Poland would take weeks. Relabelling in Milton Keynes adapts the goods in a day or two, without sending them back across the Channel. Polish grocery shops use the same operation, described in Polish packaged food for UK shops.
The most common label faults from Poland
In warehouse practice the same gaps come back regularly:
- No FBO address in the UK or Northern Ireland; the producer's Polish address alone is not enough.
- Ingredients only in Polish, or a translation without allergens emphasised within the ingredient text.
- Allergens listed in a separate box instead of being emphasised in the ingredient list, as the rules require.
- Illegible or over-stickered durability dates, which a chain treats as no date at all.
- A label covering mandatory information on the original packaging.
Each of these can stop a delivery at the consignee, and all of them can be fixed in the warehouse before dispatch to the chain: that is exactly what relabelling is for.
Consumer label versus logistics label
Two layers of markings work on a package, and they should not be confused. The consumer label, governed by FIC and Natasha's Law, describes the product: ingredients, allergens, dates, the FBO address. The logistics label describes the shipping unit: GS1 codes, the pallet's SSCC number, batch data for the consignee's warehouse systems. Chains require both layers at once and each has its own rules; missing either one ends the same way, in refusal. In Milton Keynes we complete both: the consumer layer on unit packaging and the logistics layer on cartons and pallets, to the specific consignee's specification.
A short labelling glossary
A few abbreviations that come back in every conversation about food labels for the British market. FIC: the food information for consumers rules, the basis of the whole catalogue of mandatory label elements. PPDS: food prepacked for direct sale, covered by the Natasha's Law rule. FBO: the food business operator responsible for the product, whose details with a UK address must appear on the label. The list of 14 allergens: the catalogue of ingredients that must be emphasised within the ingredient list, from gluten and milk to lupin and molluscs. Relabelling: completing or replacing labels after the goods arrive, done in the warehouse instead of at the production plant. Knowing these five terms is enough to make a British consignee's specification stop sounding like a foreign language.
Sources
Does your food need UK labels? Use the contact form and we will prepare relabelling and repacking at the Milton Keynes warehouse.
