21st September 2021
New food allergen labelling legislation comes into force on 1st October 2021.
A recent study shows eight in ten business owners feel unprepared for Natasha’s Law and four in ten across the food industry have never even heard of it. But with less than a month to go until new food allergen labelling legislation comes into force, time is running out to make sure your organisation is compliant.
Natasha’s Law, which was introduced following the tragic fatal allergic reaction of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse in 2016, will mark important changes for the food industry. From 1 October, under changes to the Food Information Regulations, food which is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) must be labelled with a list of ingredients, including emphasised allergens in bold, italics, uppercase, coloured text or any combination of these. If you don’t already, now is the time to make sure you have the processes in place to obtain allergen information from your suppliers for all PPDS and export it to your chosen labelling partner.
At Civica, we’ve been working with clients for many months to support them in achieving compliance, but best practice goes beyond simply ticking the box. The key to ensuring food safety is in effective and auditable catering management processes, made possible with Civica Saffron.
“Everything we need to ensure compliance”
One organisation which has embraced our digital solution is Lancashire County Council (LCC). It runs a significant cost sector catering service responsible for the delivery of approximately 65,000 meals per day across 492 primary schools, 29 secondary schools and 23 care facilities.With the support of Civica Saffron catering software management, which has been in place across LCC’s operation for more than a decade, LCC was prepared for Natasha’s Law well ahead of the law change next month.
The integration of Saffron and our labelling solution gives us everything we need to ensure compliance across our school sites, particularly secondary schools, and we rolled it out in May well ahead of the legislation change.
This will be hugely beneficial in allowing us to assess compliance before the law comes into force. The biggest change for us will be the categorisation of individual ingredients and the Saffron system enables us to do this easily.”
Nigel Craine, Head of Schools & Residential Care Catering at LCC
Understanding your obligations
Natasha’s Law is just around the corner and it’ll mean big change for the food sector. If you’re still unsure of your obligations or technical labelling information, we’ve pulled together a handy Q&A.
Speak to our team to learn more about Natasha’s Law and how Civica Saffron can support you in achieving compliance.