Everything that has to be on the label
Updated
Before you design anything
This order is deliberate and it runs from the product to the paper, not the other way round. Each step can change the name you are allowed to print, and the name is the one thing on a label you cannot fix with a sticker. Work out what you have actually made first, then design something to describe it.
- Weigh the batch and check the ratio against the standard. 45 parts fruit to 55 parts sweetener, 47 for Group I fruits.
- Read the soluble solids, or run the published tests. Not less than 65 percent.
- List every ingredient and check each one against the permitted optional list in the standard.
- If any of the three above fails, the product is a fruit spread or similar, not a jam. Decide the name now.
- Weigh the product into the actual jar to get the net weight you will declare.
- Ask your state what disclosure an exemption requires, and in what type size.
What goes on it
Everything in this list is required, and a label missing one of them is not a label with a small omission, it is a label you cannot use. Check the list against the proof rather than against your memory of the proof.
None of this is a design decision, which is the useful thing to know before you hand anything to someone who designs for a living. Each item has a required form and several have a required position or type size. Give a designer the list and the constraints at the start and you get one round of proofs; give them a brief and your logo and you get a beautiful label that has to be redrawn.
- The statement of identity: the standard name, or an informative name if you are outside the standard.
- Net quantity of contents, by weight, in the specified position on the panel.
- Ingredients, in descending order by weight.
- Name and address of whoever is responsible.
- Nutrition facts, unless an exemption applies, which has conditions to check rather than assume.
- The state exemption disclosure, if you are selling under one.
The order that saves money
Labels are the one component that is cheap per unit and expensive per mistake. The minimum order is large, the lead time is real, and nothing on a printed roll can be corrected. Everything else in a jam business can be adjusted mid-season; a thousand labels with the wrong net weight cannot.
Jars, then net weight, then labels. A label is specified to a jar diameter and height, and the net weight depends on the jar. Doing it the other way round means ordering labels twice.