Nutrition Calculation Software – Nutridata Launched

We all need nutrition calculation software now! 13th December 2016 saw the deadline pass for food producers to provide nutrition data on their food labels. This has come about as a result of the EU Food Information for Consumers regulations also known as EU 1169/2011.

The regulations specify what must appear on food labels such as sandwich labels. There are several specifics that are listed here:

• A description that can be understood by normal people
• Ingredients listed clearly in quantitative order (QUID)
• Allergens indicated within the ingredient listing
• Weight / Serving
• Perishability – e.g. use by date or best before date
• Traceability – Food producer and their address
• Nutrition Information per 100g/100ml

Additionally, serving instructions or storage instructions should be included where appropriate.

Description:
The product description should be clear and easy to understand. It can be something such as a well know product e.g. Cornish Pasty or Pork Pie or Hand Salad Sandwich. This should also be on the most prominent area of the label.

Ingredient Listing:
The ingredient listing must be declared in quantitative order. Nutridata does this for you once you declare the recipe as it can determine the proportions of each ingredient. It declares each ingredient in your product by the percentage of the total ingredients. The calculations and sequencing is all done automatically.

Allergens Preset
You must now declare allergens within the ingredient list – you are not allowed to declare allergens separately from the ingredients. Allergens should be highlighted within the ingredients. There are no set rules about how this is done so bold, uppercase, italic is all acceptable. You can use a different font or different colour or highlighting. The only thing that must be achieved is that it should be obviously different from the non-allergen ingredients.

There are 14 allergens that must be declared and Nutridata comes with a preset list of allergens that it will highlight in uppercase automatically. This feature is fuller editable and the user can choose how Nutridata highlights specific allergens. E.g. Flour may become “FLOUR” whereas Tuna may be converted to “TUNA (FISH)” or “Tune (FISH)”. You can watch a video about the allergen module here.

Weight and Serving Sizes
This should be clearly indicated on the packaging in grams or kilograms. You can optionally add imperial measurements as well as metric.

Perishability:
The packaging must be clearly marked with a best before date or use by date.

Traceability:
You must provide enough information on your label to trace the origin of the product. This is for public health if there is a problem with the product such as contamination.

Nutrition Information:
You must provide nutrition data for your product. This information must be declared for 100g or 100ml of product. It is optional to provide information per serving or pack so for example, if a sandwich weighs 150g, you must at least declare nutrition date per 100g but you may optionally give information for the entire sandwich.

The information declared must include as a minimum, the following:

• Energy declared in kilojoules (kJ) and kilocalories (kcal)
• Fat content in grams
• Saturated fat content in grams
• Carbohydrate content in grams
• Sugar content in grams
• Protein content in grams
• Salt content in grams

Generally speaking, grams can be rounded to the nearest gram, but salt can be declared more accurately to a decimal point.

The regulations are very specific that the order of the declaration must be as listed above.

If you want to know more regarding the EU FIC regulations, please call on 01332 864895 or fill in the contact form below and we will contact you: