Food labelling and packaging
Ingredients list
If your food or drink product has 2 or more ingredients (including water and additives), you must list them all.
You need to use the heading ‘Ingredients’ or a suitable heading which includes the word ‘ingredients’. Ingredients must be listed in order of weight, with the main ingredient first.
This guide is also available in Welsh (Cymraeg).
Ingredient quantities
You also have to show the percentage of an ingredient if it is:
- highlighted by the labelling or a picture on a package, for example ‘extra cheese’
- mentioned in the name of the product, for example ‘cheese and onion pasty’
- normally connected with the name by the consumer, for example fruit in a summer pudding
You must follow the net quantity labelling requirements for all packaged foods above 5 grams or 5 millilitres.
You may also need to tell users about the percentage of particular ingredients using a quantitative ingredients declaration (QUID). Read the ‘When to display the QUID’ section of the food labelling guidance.
Allergens
You must highlight allergens on the label using a different font, style or background colour. You must also list them in the ingredients.
The allergens you need to highlight and list are:
- celery
- cereals containing gluten - including wheat, rye, barley and oats
- crustaceans - including prawns, crab and lobster
- eggs
- fish
- lupin
- milk
- molluscs - including squid, mussels, cockles, whelks and snails
- mustard
- nuts
- peanuts
- sesame seeds
- soya beans
- sulphur dioxide or sulphites at levels above 10mg per kilogram or per litre
Find out how to label allergens on prepacked food.
You should use a precautionary allergen label if there’s a chance that traces of allergens have got into products accidentally.