Solutions
Food & Beverages
Food labeling looks simpler than pharmaceutical labeling and is often harder to control, because the rate of change is so much higher. A supplier substitution can change an allergen declaration, and the pack has to keep up.
What makes it hard.
Undeclared allergens drive recalls.
Allergen mislabeling is one of the most common reasons food is withdrawn from sale. The failure is almost never the analysis: it is a label that did not catch up with a change to the recipe or the supplier.
Every recipe change is a label change.
Ingredient order, allergen emphasis, nutrition values and origin claims all derive from the formulation. When they are maintained separately from it, they drift the moment anything is reformulated.
Multi-language is mandatory, not optional.
A product sold across the EU may need the mandatory particulars in the language of every member state it is sold in. That multiplies the surface on which a translation can go stale.
Private label multiplies the variants.
The same production line may print for several retail brands, each with its own artwork, claims and approval chain, from one formulation.
The rulebook
What you answer to.
The regulations and standards that govern labeling in this industry. Always check the current text before relying on any of them.
- EU Regulation 1169/2011: food information to consumers, mandatory particulars
- FDA 21 CFR 101: US food labeling and nutrition labeling
- FALCPA and FASTER Act: US major food allergen declaration
- EU Regulation 1333/2008: food additives
- FSMA: preventive controls and traceability recordkeeping
- GS1 General Specifications: GTIN and trade item barcodes
- Country-of-origin labelling rules, per market
The outputs
What has to agree.
Produced by separate systems these drift apart. Produced from one record they cannot.
- Consumer-facing pack label
- Ingredient and allergen declaration
- Nutrition declaration
- Trade unit barcode and traceability record
The capabilities that carry it.
Label Management
Design, approve and print labels from one controlled source, with electronic approval and a complete audit trail on every change.
Regulatory Data
One master record for product and regulatory attributes, so the label, the artwork and the ERP cannot disagree with each other.
Destination Labeling
Market-specific language, symbols and regulatory content applied automatically by ship-to destination, from one approved template.
Traceability
Full genealogy from incoming material to shipped unit, queryable for the product's regulatory retention period.
Questions about this industry.
Can the label be driven from our formulation data?
That is the aim. Ingredient order, allergen declaration and nutrition values all derive from the formulation, so holding them as one record and resolving the label from it removes the reconciliation step where drift happens. Where the formulation lives authoritatively in another system, it flows in rather than being re-entered.
How are retailer-specific and private label variants handled?
As destination-driven content on one controlled template rather than as separate labels per customer. The approval chain can differ per brand while the underlying product record stays single.
Other industries
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