Setting Up Natasha's Law Compliance

This guide shows how to set LabelFood up so the labels you put on pre-packed food meet UK requirements, and how to produce the records an inspector asks for.

What Natasha’s Law Requires

Natasha’s Law, in force since 1 October 2021, covers food that is pre-packed for direct sale (PPDS): food you package on your own premises before a customer orders it, such as a sandwich in a chiller or a salad in a pot on the counter.

Each of those packs has to carry the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the allergens in it emphasised so they stand out from the rest of the text.

Food you make and store in the kitchen, but never hand over in a pack, is not PPDS. In LabelFood those are prep products, and the prep labels you print for them are about your own traceability rather than about this law.

Step 1: Check Your Allergen List

Go to Settings → Allergens. All 14 statutory allergens are set up for every organisation and cannot be removed, so there is nothing to switch on.

If your kitchen handles something outside the 14 that people regularly ask about, add it with Add allergen. It then prints alongside the others.

Step 2: Set the Allergens on Every Product

A label can only declare what the product record holds:

1. Go to Products and open each product
2. Select every allergen the product contains
3. For a sales product, type the full Ingredients list as well, heaviest first, and wrap each allergen in **double asterisks** so it is emphasised on the label
4. Save

To find the gaps rather than checking one by one, use Reports → Allergen Matrix. It puts every active product against every allergen in one grid, so a product nobody has declared anything for is easy to spot.

Declare anything genuinely present, including the small quantities. “May contain” style precautionary wording is a separate decision and is not a substitute for declaring what you have put in.

Step 3: Print the Right Label Design

Sales products can print on several designs, and only the full layout carries everything the law asks for.

1. On the device, go to Settings → Label Settings → Select Template
2. Open the Sales tab
3. Choose Compliant (UK) and tap Use this design

New devices are already set to this design. It uses the longer label and carries the full declaration: the name of the food, the use-by, the ingredients with allergens emphasised, a CONTAINS summary, the nutrition and origin details, and your business name and address.

The shorter sales designs fit the small label and leave the full ingredients list out. They are fine for food that is not PPDS, and not a substitute for the compliant design on food that is.

Net quantity, nutrition and origin come from the product’s own fields. The list of fields the label can carry is in Settings → Custom Fields in the dashboard.

Step 4: Check a Printed Label

Print one real label and read it against the pack it goes on:

• the name of the food is the name a customer would recognise
• the ingredients are all there, in descending order of weight
• every allergen in that list stands out from the text around it
• the CONTAINS summary matches the ingredients
• the use-by date is the one you intend

If the preview on the device flags that a section was dropped, read the note beside it. On a sales label a missing section can be a legally required one, and it usually means the product record is missing that data rather than the printer being at fault.

Step 5: Keep the Records for an Inspection

When an Environmental Health Officer visits, the Compliance Pack gives you one due-diligence summary to hand over:

1. Go to Reports → Compliance Pack
2. Choose the period: 7, 30 or 90 days
3. Review the three sections on screen:
   • Label discipline: labels printed, labels removed, removal rate, and any labels left expired on the shelf
   • Wastage log: records, quantity, cost, and the breakdown by reason
   • Catalogue and allergens: active products, and how many have allergens declared
4. Click Export PDF and give the inspector the file

Two other reports are worth having open alongside it:

• Reports → Label Report: every label printed in the last 90 days, which also exports to PDF
• Reports → Staff Activity: print activity per team member, which also exports to PDF

If you need a record in a form that is not covered here, contact our support team.

The 14 UK Allergens

As they are named in LabelFood:

Celery, Cereals containing gluten, Crustaceans, Eggs, Fish, Lupin, Milk, Molluscs, Mustard, Nuts, Peanuts, Sesame, Soya, Sulphur dioxide.

Peanuts and nuts are two separate entries in the law and must be declared separately.

Key Points

• Every PPDS pack needs the name of the food and a full ingredients list
• Allergens in that list must be emphasised, which the compliant design does for you
• The label goes on before the food is put out for the customer
• Keep your product records current: the label can only declare what the product holds
• Keep your printed-label and waste records, which is what the Compliance Pack is for

This guide explains how to set the product up. It is not legal advice, and responsibility for what the label says rests with your business.