If you sell sandwiches, cakes, salads or any other food that's packaged on your own premises before a customer buys it, allergen labelling isn't optional — it's a legal requirement under what's widely known as Natasha's Law. For UK cafés, bakeries and takeaways, getting this wrong can mean enforcement action from your local trading standards team, and in the worst cases, puts customers with serious allergies at real risk. Here's what you need to know, and how the right packaging and stickers make compliance straightforward.
What is Natasha's Law and who does it apply to?
Natasha's Law introduced new allergen labelling rules for Prepacked for Direct Sale (PPDS) food across the UK. PPDS food is anything that's packaged on the same premises where it's sold, in the same packaging the customer buys it in, before the customer has the chance to ask a member of staff about its ingredients. In practice, that covers a huge range of everyday café and bakery items: sandwiches made that morning and wrapped behind the counter, pre-packed cakes and pastries in a sealed box or bag on a display shelf, salads boxed up in advance, and sealed sausage rolls or pasties sitting in a hot cabinet.
If a customer orders first and you wrap or bag the item afterwards, right in front of them, that's generally treated differently to PPDS food — but the moment something is packaged in advance and simply picked up off a shelf, PPDS rules apply.
The 14 allergens you need to account for
UK food law recognises 14 allergens that must be identified whenever they're present as ingredients: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide/sulphites, and tree nuts. For PPDS food, these allergens must be emphasised within a full ingredients list shown directly on the product's packaging or label — not on a separate chalkboard, menu or poster elsewhere in the shop.
What your labels actually need to show
A compliant PPDS label needs the product name and a full list of ingredients, with any of the 14 allergens clearly emphasised — typically in bold, a different colour, underlined, or in a box, so they stand out from the rest of the ingredients list at a glance. This isn't a design nice-to-have; it's the specific legal requirement, and inconsistent or illegible emphasis is one of the most common reasons businesses fall foul of inspections.
Common mistakes we see from small food businesses
- Listing allergens on a separate allergen chart at the till instead of on the product's own packaging.
- Using print so small it's barely legible once it's on a sticker or a narrow cake box edge.
- Forgetting that "may contain traces of" cross-contamination warnings are a separate consideration from the mandatory ingredients and allergen label itself.
- Not updating labels promptly when a recipe or supplier ingredient changes.
How the right packaging makes compliance easier
You don't need to overhaul your entire packaging range to get this right — you need labelling that's legible, consistent, and properly sized for the product. Custom Rectangular and Square Stickers are a practical way to print full ingredient and allergen information directly onto sandwich boxes, cake boxes or bakery bags, giving you a dedicated, consistently sized space for the information rather than squeezing it onto existing packaging as an afterthought. For boxed items, our Cake Boxes and Meal Boxes give you a flat surface that's easy to apply a label to, while Greaseproof Paper Sheets can be used alongside a clearly labelled outer box or bag for items like pastries and sandwiches.
A simple system worth setting up once
The businesses that manage this well tend to standardise a single sticker template per product category — one layout for sandwiches, one for cakes, one for salads — so staff aren't designing labels from scratch every day. Get the template right once, with allergens clearly emphasised and sized correctly for your packaging, and reordering becomes simple and consistent going forward.
Keep in mind: the rules continue to evolve
The Food Standards Agency has continued to clarify and extend allergen labelling guidance since Natasha's Law came into force, including recent guidance addressing mobile sellers and street food traders. If you're expanding into new formats — a market stall, a food truck, or online delivery — it's worth checking the latest FSA guidance for your specific business type rather than assuming your existing labelling approach automatically covers it.
Get compliant, legible allergen labels sorted
Don't let a packaging gap become a compliance risk. We can help you design clear, properly sized allergen stickers and pair them with the right boxes and bags for your menu. Get in touch to put together a labelling system that keeps your customers safe and your business compliant.