Tools and directories

The check, before the labels are printed

Updated October 2026

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One: is every ingredient cleared for this use?Two: do you have the full composition of every bought blend?Three: which colors must be named?Four: is there a chemical preservative?Five: run every ingredient against the nine And if it is sold for decoration rather than eating, say so File the answers with the formula References

Five questions, all of them answered from supplier specifications rather than from a bench.

One: is every ingredient cleared for this use?

For a color additive that means a listing in 21 CFR part 73, 74 or 82 for the use you intend. For anything else it means its own basis. Get the regulation and the use in writing, per ingredient.

Two: do you have the full composition of every bought blend?

Colors, flavors, decor mixes and carriers. You cannot declare what you do not know, and bought blends are exactly where the undeclared things live. A specification, not a marketing sheet.

Three: which colors must be named?

A color subject to certification is declared by its listed name from part 74 or 82, with the FD&C prefix and "No." optional and "Lake" mandatory where it applies. Only non-certified colors may use "Artificial Color" or "Color Added".

Four: is there a chemical preservative?

If so the label carries its common or usual name and a separate description of its function, in the rule’s own vocabulary: preservative, to retard spoilage, a mold inhibitor, to help protect flavor, to promote color retention.

Five: run every ingredient against the nine

Milk, egg, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans, sesame. Including what is inside a flavor, a color or an incidental additive, because the statute reaches those notwithstanding any other law. Then use one of the two permitted label forms.

And if it is sold for decoration rather than eating, say so

Prominently, on the front, in the words a buyer in a baking aisle will read. "Edible" is a statement about composition and the absence of a warning is read as a presence of one.

File the answers with the formula

Clearances, specifications, color listings, preservative functions and the allergen sweep. A supplier change puts all five back in play at once, and a file is what makes that an hour rather than a guess.

References

21 CFR parts 73, 74 and 82, the listings of color additives exempt from certification, subject to certification, and provisionally listed. A color additive is lawful for a use because it is listed for that use, which is the authority 101.22(k) points at. law.cornell.edu

21 CFR 101.22(k), on declaring coloring in the statement of ingredients. Paragraph (k)(1) requires a color additive subject to certification to be declared by the name listed in part 74 or part 82, with "Lake" included where it is a lake; (k)(2) allows "Artificial Color", "Artificial Color Added" or "Color Added" only for colors not subject to certification and not otherwise required to be named. law.cornell.edu

21 CFR 101.22(j), which requires a food containing an added chemical preservative to declare both the common or usual name of the ingredient and a separate description of its function, giving "preservative", "to retard spoilage", "a mold inhibitor", "to help protect flavor" and "to promote color retention" as examples. law.cornell.edu

21 U.S.C. 343(w), the major food allergen labeling requirements. Paragraph (1) gives the two permitted forms, a "Contains" statement immediately after or adjacent to the ingredient list in type no smaller than that list, or the food source in parentheses after the ingredient name. Paragraph (4) applies the requirement to a flavoring, coloring or incidental additive notwithstanding any other law. law.cornell.edu

21 U.S.C. 321(qq), which defines major food allergen as milk, egg, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame, plus any food ingredient containing protein derived from one of them, excepting highly refined oils and ingredients exempt under 343(w). law.cornell.edu

Written from federal statute and regulation, not from a kitchen. Food labeling has more parts than three sections, and a state cottage food program may add or subtract requirements for a local sale. Nothing here is clearance for a specific label, and whether an ingredient is cleared for food use is a question about that ingredient.