What the label has to carry
Updated
On this page6
The five
- Statement of identity. What the product is, in a name somebody recognizes.
- Net quantity. A claim about every jar.
- Ingredients, in descending order by weight.
- Allergens, declared as required.
- Name and place of business of the responsible party.
Order the labels last
Net quantity depends on the jar and on how you pack it, and the ingredient list depends on a recipe that is still moving while you are testing. Labels ordered early are labels reprinted, and the reprint is more expensive than the wait. This is why the first-season calendar puts labels after the jar decision rather than alongside it.
What you may not say
Health claims are the obvious trap and fermented products attract them, because the maker has usually read a great deal about the benefits of live cultures. A claim on a label is a regulated statement and the fact that it appeared in a study does not make it available to you. The same care applies to words like natural, traditional and raw, which are not free of meaning just because they are not precisely defined.
Name it accurately
What a product may be called is its own page, and it matters here because the statement of identity is the first of the five. A product named something it is not fails on the label before anybody tastes it.
The label has to fit the jar you chose
Label area is a constraint and the five required elements are not negotiable, so a jar with a small or awkwardly curved panel can force the design before the design starts. That is a reason to settle the container before the label rather than after, and it is one of the few places where a packaging decision reaches directly into a regulatory one.
Fermented products also tend to want more label copy than a quick pickle, because live products carry handling instructions a shelf-stable jar does not. Budget the space for it.