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Robyn Banks from Food Labelling Experts has over 20 years of experience in food labelling and regulatory management. This experience extends to working with premier international brands. Robyn had a secondment to the National Food Authority (a precursor to the present Food Standards Australia New Zealand). Robyn has also worked with small to medium businesses so understands your difficulties.

Robyn Banks has worked in and with small business. Why is that relevant? She knows that you, the small food manufacturer, is the one that is doing everything. You schedule the production runs, sort the deliveries, pay the bills and talk to customers. Labelling is another thing that you need to work out. Food Labelling Experts has created the online course to make this easier for you.

Author's Name

Robyn Banks

Phone

0408641983

Web Site

https://www.foodlabellingexperts.com.au/

Email

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Food labelling training is not something that you do a degree or a certificate in and there you have it – you are an expert. The legislation for food for Australia is managed by several different departments in the government systems we have here. There is Food Standards Australia New Zealand which creates and updates the Food Standards Code, which includes such things as nutrient content claims and plain English allergen labelling, with these standards being enforced by the States and Territories. The National Measurement Institute looks after the net content legislation and the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission looks after country-of-origin legislation and the legislation around false and misleading information. There is also specific legislation for the States and Territories, including container deposit schemes that provide refunds on containers that sit within the Environmental Protection departments and also specific labelling around the energy content of food for sale in certain takeaway food outlets.

So, how do you find out what is required when you are creating the labels for the new food product you are about to launch into the market?

There are a several things you can do:

1. Research the legislation yourself and work through the ‘what happens when’ scenario –

2. Pay someone to do the labelling for you - $$$$

3. Enrol in a general food course that will give you a little bit of information about food labelling - $$$??

4. Enrol in a specific training course that requires you to attend at particular times - $$$

5. Enrol in online courses to proceed at your own pace, and one that especially allows you to refer back to the training once you have purchased it, so that you can use it for your other products that you release - $$

Let’s look at the pros and cons of getting your label set:

1. If you research the legislation yourself, you need to know where to look because all the labelling requirements are not set by just the one government department. It can be quite a tangle to sort out.

2. You can always copy someone else’s label to get the basics, but this does not necessarily give you the finer details needed for your products. What if the other label is incorrect – you are looking at the possibility of a product recall if you get it really wrong.

3. You can pay someone to put your labelling information together. This might be okay when you have only one or two labels to do. The people who put the information together for you are like the plumber who knows where to hit the pipe when you have a plumbing problem – you pay for the knowledge they have – they know where to look for the information. They are professionals and their fee will reflect that. When you are starting out, this may not be affordable for you.

4. Enrolling in a general food course will give you information about food labelling requirements but may not give you the nitty gritty to keep you out of trouble. Usually these are too ‘general’ in nature.

5. Enrol in a specific training course that requires you to attend at the specific time the course is held. It may not be a convenient time for you, and you might live a long way from where the course is being run. This adds to the cost of the course – time out of the business and the cost of travel and accommodation. Face to face might be the way you prefer to learn so that you can ask your questions and solve any labelling problem that you have.

6. Enrolling in an online course will allow you to proceed at your own pace and in your own time. Somethings will be easier to work through than others, so this form of training allows you to refer back as you work through the current and any subsequent labelling. You won’t retain all of the knowledge. Some online courses will give you tools to help your labelling journey. Some online courses are not just a once off going through the process as they will give you ongoing access to the training to keep on following up when you need to. Online learning has been, for a lot of people, the way forward during the lockdowns that occurred during the first 2 years of the pandemic. It has provided training for people when face-to-face was not possible – no travelling and no congregating.

Learning all about what is required on your food labels is a necessity. The cost of getting it wrong is not just monetary, but also the reputation of your brand. Product recalls are costly – potential illness when labelling such as for allergens in the food, is incorrect the cost of bringing products back and removing it out of the retail space and the loss of the production costs and packaging costs.

Understanding the labelling requirements will make the time to get to market progress more smoothly and ensure that any issues are caught in the early stages. You will be able to concentrate on getting more product out there and not worrying about whether your label is correct or not.