Best Practices for Printing Food Labels

With an on-demand color label printer, you can add variable data and color codes to your food labels. Best before dates, color-codes for inventory management. Plus, you can change your label artwork as SKU’s and food ingredients change. We go over the best practices when printing food labels in bulk.

Best Before Date

Most food labels need a “Best before” area of print which usually requires special coatings or materials to accept the lot codes correctly. Having the ‘best before’ date on your product will help identify when your product reached the expired date.

You should either build your nutrition fact label into your product label design or print your nutrition label on an appropriately sized label and apply it to your product packaging.

Have Properly marked Food Label Nutrition Facts & UPC Barcodes.

Most retailers will have a set of guidelines for nutrition facts labeling requirements, and they will need to reflect FDA guidelines. Depends on your market, certain countries will have specific requirements for their market. You also want to make sure you have a valid UPC barcode that’s assigned to your company.

The FDA does not regulate nutrition fact panels on a proactive basis, but if it finds a business incorrectly reporting nutritional facts on their labels, it will issue a recall of your product. It’s important to study the FDA rules or hire a compliance expert.

Type of Label

It is important to know if the food item will be frozen, baked, or stored in a moist environment since certain food labels are made for these conditions. LabelBasic matte polypropylene and glossy polypropylene labels are durable to withstand all types of harsh environments.

Your label must look authentic 

Food Packaging sells best when its packaging triggers the appetite of the consumers. Packaging and labels have to look their best for the customer and image quality is an important aspect. Amateur graphic design is a recipe for disaster that leads to lost sales. It’s worth hiring a professional to create your labels as this is the primary component for sales.

You may also want to check out related articles on the topic, including How to Print Color Labels and Preventing Label Application Problems.