Food labels in your business

The Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code sets out the requirements for food businesses to ensure food that is sold is safe and suitable. One aspect of this is the requirement to label packaged foods with certain information about the product.

Food labels provide consumers with enough information to make informed choices when buying a product, this is particularly important for members of our community with life-threatening allergies, special dietary requirements and nutritional needs.

What needs to be on a label?

• The name of the food product
• A description of the food
• Ingredients list
• Nutritional information
• Date marking - Best before or used-by dates
• Storage and preparation instructions
• Mandatory declarations of certain ingredients such as those known to cause allergic responses.
• The business name, and address of manufacture.

Foods that don’t need a label

There are some exemptions from labelling foods, however information about ingredients must be available to your consumer if they ask.

Foods that do not need to be labelled include:

• Food that is not packaged
• Food made and packaged from the premises from which it is sold
• Food packaged in the presence of the purchaser
• Food delivered packaged and ready for consumption at the request of customer
• Whole or cut fresh fruit

For further information about labelling you can:

• Refer to food labelling sections of your business’ Food Safety Program
• Refer to the food labelling section of the Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code
  • Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code User Guides 
  • Australian New Zealand Food Standards Labelling Poster 
  • Nutritional panel calculator