Artwork or Label Check

Food labelling that sells and complies

Product artwork and labels present your brand to the world.

End-consumers rely on your label to illustrate all the information necessary to help them make informed and safe purchase decisions. To prevent misleading your customers, and to avoid costly recalls and damage to your reputation, it is critical that you comply.

We check your labels against complicated legal requirements for packaging in your markets of sale, so you don’t have to.

It is not just about compliance, we also want your products to sell. That is why our experts provide risk-based advice based on regulations, case law and our understanding of local markets, so you can make a commercial decision that suits you.

Checking you comply

Our artwork or label check service takes your designs and validates them against legal packaging requirements in your chosen jurisdictions.

Our team of technical and regulatory experts can work with marketing, graphic design houses and technical staff to review versions of your product artwork, highlighting anything that needs to change and suggesting amends that will keep you in line with the law.

This covers all mandatory information for your intended market such as:

Product legal name – Pictorials – Field of Vision – Ingredients declaration – Allergen declarations – Storage information – Nutritional information – Marketing and nutrition claims

Before you go to print, we can perform a final check to ensure all information and suggested amendments are correctly reflected in the product label.

Considering your commercial positioning

We consider your commercial positioning and check the validity or your nutrition and health claims as well as the sense of denominations or descriptors in the language of your intended market.

Although local legislation may sometimes prevent you from presenting your products in exactly the way you want, we’re here to work with you to make sure you end up with artwork that’s not only compliant but true to your brand vision.

What information we need from you:

Your existing or draft artwork and your product specification.

In Practice

A large retailer approached Ashbury to manage the artwork review of supplier branded labels for products intended to be sold in their Republic of Ireland stores. ‘Supplier branded’ means products that are widely sold by other retailers such as Heinz, Coca-Cola, Mars.

The project involved close liaison with the retailer and their suppliers to ensure they had a detailed understanding of the food law requirements. Some basic supplier specification questions were completed to ensure the supplier was accredited and was audited to an appropriate standard.

Ashbury then checked that the label was in English, allergens were highlighted and there were no legal errors on the artwork. We also checked that an EU address was present in compliance with EU Reg 1169/2011 Food Information to Consumers. Finally, we crossed checked the barcode matched the product information sheet provided by the retailer.

This process allowed for the retailer to have peace of mind that the products on shelf were safe and legal so their customers could have the best in-store experience.

We also work with many of these manufacturers independently from the retailer relationships to check their artworks before they go to print.