There are several major players in the food industry setting out new compliance regulations. These new standards will lead to changes for the way all edible purchases are labeled and require a mass update to all nutrition information, listed ingredients, and potential allergens found in the foods we consume. This will mean a costly change to businesses for the re-labeling of all products.

Let’s start with:
Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI)
PTI is an industry-wide effort to improve and trace procedures through the food manufacturing supply chain to develop a standardized label. Wal-mart is the first powerhouse to start enforcing this initiative by announcing that they will be rejecting any shipments that are not compliant as of January 2014. The Produce Traceability Initiative will allow government and industry to work better together to remove suspect product from the marketplace, while limiting the scope and cost of recalls.

Read the FAQ’s for more information PTI

Food Information to Consumers (FIC)
The new European Regulation (1169/2011) on the provision of food information to consumers changes existing legislation on food labeling including:

Mandatory nutrition information on processed foods
Mandatory origin labeling of unprocessed meat from pigs, sheep, goats and poultry
Highlighting allergens e.g. peanuts or milk in the list of ingredients
Better legibility i.e. minimum size of text
Requirements on information on allergens also cover non pre-packed foods including those sold in restaurants and cafés

Read the Q & A’s on FIC Regulation 1169/2011

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The FDA has proposed a major change to the way we see the nutrition facts on our food products. The latest changes to the nutrition label include:

Large font for the calorie count
Disclosure of amount of ‘Added Sugars’
Large font for the servings per container

 

Read more on the FDA’s proposed changes to the nutrition facts label
Solutions
Being aware of all of the necessary changes in the regulations and addressing all of these compliance issues with an all-in-one solution is possible. To adhere to the PTI standards you’ll need to follow the GS1 standards for barcoding and tracking through the supply chain process. FIC standards can be updated within a database for easy to manage custom printed labels with ingredients, allergens, and additional nutrition information. Save time, money, and be more efficient with print on demand labels. Producing labels on an as needed basis will keep your organization flexible and also reduce waste with unused, out-of-date, or non-compliant labels. There are many smart printing label makers, services, and solutions available to keep your company compliant.

 
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