Food Labelling Laws 2026: What's Changed and What You Need to Do
Food labelling law is evolving across the UK, EU, and US. Here is a summary of the key changes in 2026 and what food businesses need to do to stay compliant.
Food Labelling Laws 2026: What's Changed and What You Need to Do
Food labelling law is never static. Each year brings new regulations, updated guidance, and enforcement priorities that food businesses must keep pace with. As we move through 2026, several significant developments are shaping what food businesses need to do with their labels — whether on physical products, in digital menus, or on online stores.
This post summarises the key changes and what they mean for your business.
UK: Post-Brexit Labelling Divergence Accelerates
Since leaving the EU, Great Britain has retained most EU food labelling law in UK domestic law but is now beginning to diverge. Key 2026 developments:
UK HFSS Regulations. High in fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS) food restrictions, which came into force for volume promotions in October 2022 and for location restrictions in October 2022, continue to be enforced and extended. From October 2025, restrictions on paid-for online advertising of HFSS foods began to take effect. Food businesses selling HFSS products online need to review their digital advertising strategy.
Calorie Labelling. Mandatory calorie labelling for out-of-home food — businesses with 250 or more employees — has been in effect since April 2022. Smaller businesses operating online food services should be prepared for potential extension of these requirements.
Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling. The government has been consulting on updates to the UK traffic light labelling system. No mandatory change has yet been legislated, but the consultation signals potential future requirements. Businesses using voluntary traffic light labelling should monitor this space.
Origin Labelling. Post-Brexit, the UK has maintained country of origin labelling requirements broadly in line with the EU but with some differences in how third-country imports are treated. Businesses importing ingredients or finished products should ensure their labelling accurately reflects origin.
EU: Farm to Fork Strategy Impacts
The European Commission's Farm to Fork Strategy continues to drive food labelling changes across EU markets:
Sustainability Labelling. The EU is developing a framework for environmental sustainability labelling of food products, including a potential "ecolabel" scheme. While mandatory requirements are not yet in force, businesses planning long-term label design should be aware of the direction of travel.
Date Marking Review. The EU has updated guidance on "best before" vs "use by" labelling to reduce food waste. "Best before" dates may be omitted for certain product categories. Businesses should review whether their date marking is appropriate.
Alcohol Labelling. EU regulations requiring full ingredient lists and nutrition labelling on alcoholic beverages — previously exempt — are now in force from December 2023, with a phase-in period. Alcoholic beverage producers must now list ingredients and nutrition information.
PPDS Labelling. Following Natasha's Law in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland implemented equivalent PPDS labelling requirements. Businesses selling food in the Republic of Ireland must comply.
US: FDA New Era of Smarter Food Safety
In the United States, the FDA's New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative is driving several labelling and traceability changes:
Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Rule 204 — Food Traceability. FSMA Rule 204, effective January 2026 for most foods, requires businesses in the supply chain of designated high-risk foods (including leafy greens, tomatoes, peppers, sprouts, and certain seafood) to maintain additional traceability records. While this is primarily a supply chain record-keeping requirement rather than a consumer-facing labelling change, the records must include key data elements that link to food lots.
Sesame as the Ninth Major Allergen. The FASTER Act's addition of sesame as a major allergen (effective January 2023) is now fully embedded in the regulatory baseline. FDA enforcement of sesame labelling requirements is active — businesses that have not yet updated their labels and product information are at enforcement risk.
Bioengineered Food Disclosure. USDA's National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard has been in effect since January 2022. Foods containing bioengineered ingredients must carry a BE disclosure — either a text statement, symbol, or electronic/digital link. Manufacturers of affected products should ensure compliance.
Online Selling: The Growing Focus on Pre-Purchase Disclosure
A consistent thread across all major markets in 2026 is increased regulatory attention on online food sales and the obligations of online food businesses to disclose allergen and other information before purchase.
UK and EU regulators have been clear that the online purchase journey must provide the same mandatory information as a physical label — before the customer checks out. US FDA guidance strongly recommends equivalent pre-purchase disclosure for online food sales.
For food businesses selling through Shopify or other online platforms, this means:
- Allergen information must be visible on every product page
- Nutritional information (where mandatory) must be accessible before purchase
- Date marking information should be clear
- "Contains" statements must not be buried in fine print
What You Need to Do Now
Audit your labels. Review every product label against the current requirements for your target markets. Pay particular attention to allergen declarations (especially sesame in the US), HFSS status in the UK, and any BE disclosure requirements in the US.
Update your website. Ensure your online product pages reflect current labelling requirements. Allergen information should be prominent and accurate.
Review your advertising. HFSS advertising restrictions in the UK are being actively enforced — review your online paid advertising strategy if you sell high fat, sugar, or salt products.
Monitor regulatory developments. Sustainability labelling, front-of-pack nutrition changes, and further FSMA implementation are all evolving. Sign up for regulatory updates from the relevant authorities (FSA in the UK, EFSA in the EU, FDA in the US).
Use technology to stay current. Managing labelling compliance manually across multiple products and markets is complex and error-prone. Tools that centralise your product data and surface allergen and nutritional information consistently across your online store reduce risk significantly.
SafeServe keeps your Shopify store's allergen information accurate and up to date as your product range evolves — helping you stay on the right side of food labelling law in 2026 and beyond.
Try SafeServe free on the Shopify App Store and build labelling compliance into your everyday operations.
Understanding Precautionary Allergen Labelling in 2026
Precautionary allergen labelling — statements such as "may contain" or "produced in a facility that also handles" — remains one of the most misunderstood areas of food labelling compliance. In both the UK and EU, regulators have consistently stated that precautionary allergen labelling should not be used as a substitute for proper allergen management. It should only appear on a label when a genuine, assessed risk of cross-contamination exists following robust allergen controls. Using "may contain" statements indiscriminately to cover all bases is not considered good practice and may attract regulatory scrutiny.
In practice, the line between appropriate and excessive precautionary labelling is difficult for small food businesses to navigate confidently. The Food Standards Agency has published updated technical guidance on allergen risk assessment that food businesses should use as the basis for their decisions. This guidance walks through the process of identifying cross-contamination risks, assessing their likelihood and severity, and determining when a precautionary statement is genuinely warranted. Completing a documented allergen risk assessment for each product is increasingly expected by enforcement authorities and food safety auditors alike.
For online food retailers, precautionary allergen statements must appear on product pages with the same prominence as "contains" declarations. Customers with severe allergies regularly rely on this information before making purchasing decisions, and burying a "may contain nuts" statement in a small-print section of a product description creates both a safety risk and a potential compliance failure. If you use an allergen management tool like Allergen Matrix to structure your product information, ensure that precautionary statements are treated as a distinct, required field — not an optional note.
Ingredient List Formatting: Common Errors That Attract Enforcement
The ingredient list is one of the most frequently non-compliant elements of food labels, and in 2026 enforcement authorities in the UK and EU are paying closer attention to formatting as well as content. Allergens must be emphasised relative to other ingredients — typically through bold text, capitalisation, or contrasting colour — and this emphasis must apply consistently throughout the ingredient list. A common error is emphasising an allergen in one compound ingredient but not in another, which creates confusion and a potential compliance gap. Every instance of an allergen in the ingredient list requires emphasis, without exception.
Order of ingredients by weight (descending at the time of manufacture) is a legal requirement that is frequently misapplied, particularly when recipes change. If a supplier reformulates an ingredient you use, or if your manufacturing process changes the relative proportions of components, your ingredient list must be reviewed and updated accordingly. Businesses that set their labels once and rarely revisit them are particularly at risk. A regular review cycle — at minimum annually, and whenever a recipe or supplier changes — is considered best practice by the FSA and is a reasonable expectation for enforcement purposes.
Online stores introduce a further complication: the ingredient list that appears on the product page must match the physical label on the product the customer receives. Discrepancies between digital and physical product information are an increasingly common source of enforcement notices and consumer complaints. If you manage product data centrally and push it to both your Shopify storefront and your label artwork, you significantly reduce the risk of these discrepancies arising. Centralised product data management is no longer optional for food businesses operating at scale across multiple channels.
Managing Labelling Compliance Across a Growing Product Range
Scaling a food business almost always means scaling the complexity of your labelling obligations. A business that starts with five products and manages allergen information in a spreadsheet may find that approach unworkable at fifty products — particularly when ingredients change, new allergens need to be tracked, and multiple sales channels each require accurate, up-to-date information. The failure modes of manual compliance management are well documented: missed updates, inconsistent formatting, version control errors, and the simple human tendency to overlook a change when working under time pressure.
A structured approach to product data management treats allergen and ingredient information as core product data, not an afterthought. This means maintaining a single source of truth for each product's ingredient list, allergen status, and nutritional information, and ensuring that any change to that record cascades automatically to every place it is displayed — product pages, menus, printed labels, and any third-party platforms you sell through. When a supplier changes a recipe and introduces a new allergen, the business that catches and updates this information promptly is the one that avoids a recall or an enforcement action.
For Shopify merchants selling food products, integrating your allergen data directly into your store's product management workflow is the most reliable way to maintain compliance as your range evolves. Rather than maintaining a separate compliance document and manually cross-referencing it with your storefront, tools designed specifically for food labelling compliance on Shopify allow you to manage everything in one place. This reduces the administrative burden of compliance and makes it far easier to demonstrate to enforcement authorities or retail buyers that your allergen information is current, accurate, and systematically maintained.
Preparing for Regulatory Inspections and Buyer Audits
Food businesses selling through retail channels or operating in the food service sector are increasingly subject to buyer-led audits as well as statutory enforcement inspections. Retailers — particularly major supermarkets and online grocery platforms — have their own supplier standards that often exceed the minimum legal requirements, and food businesses seeking to grow into these channels need to be audit-ready. In 2026, allergen management documentation is one of the most scrutinised areas in both enforcement inspections and retailer audits, and the businesses that fare best are those that can produce clear, current, and comprehensive records without significant preparation time.
An audit-ready allergen management system typically includes a written allergen policy, documented risk assessments for each product, up-to-date ingredient and allergen declarations, records of supplier ingredient changes, and evidence of staff training. The paper trail matters as much as the practices it documents. Enforcement officers and auditors are experienced at identifying the difference between a business that genuinely manages allergen risk systematically and one that has assembled documentation reactively in anticipation of a visit. Building these records as a by-product of your normal operations — rather than as a separate compliance exercise — is significantly more sustainable and credible.
For businesses using Shopify as their primary sales channel, the product data you maintain in your store can itself form part of your compliance documentation, provided it is structured, version-controlled, and kept current. If your allergen declarations on your product pages are generated from a managed data source rather than entered as free text, you have a more defensible position when demonstrating that your online information is accurate and up to date. Integrating your compliance records with your operational systems is the direction that both regulators and sophisticated retail buyers are moving towards, and early adoption puts you ahead of the curve.
Try Allergen Matrix free at saltai.app — no credit card required.
SaltAI Team
SaltAI builds focused Shopify apps for food merchants and general merchants. Every app is tested in production at a real food store — including Vanda's Kitchen — before it ships.