Every food business operating in the EU is subject to EU Regulation 1169/2011, often called the Food Information to Consumers regulation. This is the practical guide to what it requires, where operators get caught out, and how GNV makes compliance a by-product of normal kitchen workflow.
EU 1169/2011 - the FIC regulation - sets out the EU-wide rules for how food information must be presented to consumers. It applies to every food business operator in the EU and continues to apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework. Key obligations include:
Identical to the Natasha's Law list in the UK: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (above 10mg/kg or 10mg/L), lupin, and molluscs.
Operators must declare, per 100g or 100ml: energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein, and salt. They may additionally declare per-portion values and a wider voluntary set including fibre, mono-unsaturates, polyols, starch, vitamins, and minerals - provided amounts are significant under the regulation's rules.
Where operators get caught out: the mandatory nutrition declaration must be derived from a defensible methodology - a published reference, an accredited lab analysis, or a calculation using validated raw-material data. "Estimated" or "rounded" values without a defensible source are a frequent finding in inspections.
Specifications change without the kitchen knowing. The label reflects last quarter's recipe, not today's.
A sauce or marinade carries hidden allergens - soy, sesame, mustard - that don't appear on the parent recipe's label.
An ingredient is swapped on the day. The label still says the original product. The audit trail can't reconstruct what was served.
"Beef Lasagne" must declare a percentage of beef. Operators often omit QUID or use the recipe-build percentage instead of the as-served percentage.
Online menus and ordering apps must surface mandatory information before purchase. Many operator websites still don't.
Operators assume non-prepacked sales are exempt. They aren't - allergen info must still be available, format set nationally.
Yes. GNV applies the full EU 1169 ruleset to every recipe and ingredient, generates labels with the 14 allergens emphasised, calculates the mandatory nutrition declaration per 100g and per portion, and produces FIC-compliant prepacked labels with a verifiable audit record.
FSAI is the competent authority. Routine inspections check label accuracy, allergen declarations, and the operator's documented procedure for keeping label information current. See our Ireland / FSAI page.
The substantive requirements were retained as UK law via the Food Information Regulations 2014 and have evolved alongside Natasha's Law. GNV produces compliant labels for both jurisdictions from the same recipe data.
GNV generates the structured label data and applies the appropriate national language template at output. Multi-language SKUs are supported natively.
FOP labelling is voluntary under EU 1169 today. GNV's nutrition data model supports any FOP scheme, including Nutri-Score and the UK FOP traffic light system, and is positioned to support a harmonised EU FOP if and when the Commission adopts one.
One platform, every label, every audit. Free pilot window dates available.
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