To be a successful food or beverage manufacturer, you must ensure your products' food labels are in compliance with Food and Drug Administration rules. The risk of fines and other action by the agency should be enough to motivate you to check the information you're printing on food labels. It pays to remember that FDA labeling laws aren't just concerned with nutrition facts panels, serving sizes and other numerical elements. You also need to ensure the written claims about your products' health impact fit in with agency guidelines.

Nutritional Value Claims

Your custom food labels' promises can't go beyond the bounds set down by the FDA. According to the agency itself, an official health claim is a statement that links a food or beverage with mitigating a health condition. These claims are closely regulated and must be based on either approval by the FDA an authoritative statement by the National Academy of Sciences or another government body tasked with managing nutrition or public health.

When preparing other, more general kinds of nutrition label promises, you should be aware that the FDA also has authority over statements about how much or little of a substance is in a food. Words such as "free," "high" and "low" have specific meanings under FDA rules, and as such your company should be careful in how it uses these terms.

Organic Food Status

Organic labeling is a little different than other kinds of FDA-compliant label management. For one thing, organic foods are not under the purview of the FDA. The National Organic Program is a federal regulatory framework overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture rather than the FDA. Of course, the simple fact that the FDA is not involved in organic labeling doesn't mean your company can or should take this obligation lightly. "Organic" is still a federally regulated term, with a long list of necessary stipulations before you can use the word.

Optimized Food Labels

When signing off on your company's next batch of custom food labels, you should consider working with an experienced partner such as Lightning Labels. The advanced packaging types available from Lightning Labels can help you oblige all legal requirements while still enhancing the appeal of your products on shelves. For instance, extended content labels fold out or peel away to give you room for ingredient lists, Nutrition Facts panels, branded imagery and potentially even extra information such as recipe suggestions. Compliance is a must, but obliging this requirement doesn't have to stop you from delivering appealing labels that can catch customers' eyes.

Request your FREE instant quote today.