Natasha's Law and PPDS labelling, explained properly

There is no definition of “prepacked for direct sale” in the legislation itself. The term is defined by exclusion: Article 2(2)(e) of Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 says that prepacked food “does not cover foods packed on the sales premises at the consumer's request or prepacked for direct sale”. The working definition everyone uses comes from Food Standards Agency guidance.

The FSA's definition: “Prepacked for direct sale or PPDS is food that is packaged at the same place it is offered or sold to consumers and is in this packaging before it is ordered or selected.”

The FSA sets three questions. If the answer to all three is yes, the food is PPDS.

There is a fourth condition that decides most of the hard cases and that almost nobody mentions. For food to be prepacked at all, the packaging must enclose it so that “the contents cannot be altered without opening or changing the packaging”. A lidded pot is enclosed. An open cardboard tray with a hot dog in it is not, so it is not PPDS.

“Same place” is wider than one room. FSA guidance treats it as the same premises, the same site, or other premises where the food is sold from moveable or temporary premises. Site means “a building complex such as a shopping centre or airport terminal in which the same food business operates from more than one unit”. So if you pack at your unit in the morning and sell from your own market stall in the afternoon, that is still PPDS.

The ingredients duty imports Article 13 of Regulation 1169/2011, which sets a minimum x-height of 1.2mm for mandatory information, dropping to 0.9mm where the largest surface of the pack is under 80cm². Information must be conspicuous, easily visible, clearly legible and not hidden or obscured.

Handwritten labels are not banned. FSA guidance accepts them provided they meet the legibility requirements. In practice they are where most compliance failures start, because handwriting is inconsistent, ink runs in a chiller, and nobody can check what was written after the fact.

Two points worth getting right. The allergen is cereals containing gluten, not “gluten”, and writing “gluten” alone is inaccurate. And the legal term is nuts, with those eight species named exhaustively. “Tree nuts” is FSA plain-English shorthand, not the legal category, and peanuts are a separate entry because a peanut is a legume.

Annex II also carries specific exemptions, for example fully refined soybean oil, wheat-based glucose syrups, and fish gelatine used as a fining agent in beer and wine.

Regulation 5A, the ingredients duty, applies to food offered for sale “otherwise than by means of distance communication”. So the requirement to print a full ingredient list on the pack does not apply to PPDS food sold online, by phone or by mail order.

That is not a free pass. Two things still apply.

Allergen information has to be provided before the purchase is concluded, in writing, on the website, catalogue or menu, and again at the moment of delivery. Regulation 6A, the duty to name the food, still applies to distance sales, although the name does not have to be on the pack itself.

In practice, if you sell cakes through Instagram or a website and post them out, you need the allergen information visible where the customer buys, and again with the parcel. Most sellers find it easier to put a full label on the box anyway, because it satisfies both moments at once and it is one process instead of two.

Click and collect sits awkwardly. If the customer orders online and the food is packed before they arrive, the sale is concluded at a distance but the handover is in person. The safe answer is to label the pack fully and provide the information online as well.

Regulation 9 of the Food Information Regulations 2014 places the duty to enforce on food authorities and port health authorities. In practice that means your local authority, usually environmental health, sometimes trading standards, and the split varies between councils.

Enforcement normally starts with an improvement notice rather than a prosecution. Regulation 12 applies section 10 of the Food Safety Act 1990 to both PPDS duties, so an officer can serve a notice requiring you to comply with regulation 5A(1) or regulation 6A. Failing to comply with that notice is itself an offence.

There is a narrower direct offence. Regulation 10 makes it an offence to fail to comply with the allergen provisions specifically, including regulation 5A(1)(b), the requirement to emphasise the allergens. Missing the ingredient list altogether, or the name of the food, is dealt with through the improvement notice route first.

Regulation 11 sets the penalty: on summary conviction, a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale. In England and Wales level 5 has been unlimited since 12 March 2015. In Scotland and Northern Ireland level 5 remains capped, and you should check the current position locally.