This is PPDS food

Prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) is, in the FSA's words, "food that is packaged at the same place it is offered or sold to consumers and is in this packaging before it is ordered or selected". Since 1 October 2021 a PPDS item must carry a label showing the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with any of the 14 regulated allergens emphasised inside that list.

"The label for PPDS food needs to show: the name of the food, an ingredients list, any of the 14 allergens emphasised in the ingredients list, if these are present in the food."

Name of the food. Its legal name, or in the absence of one its customary name, or a descriptive name "precise enough to allow consumers to know the true nature of the product".

Ingredients list. Headed with the word "Ingredients", and "listed in descending order of weight at the time the product was made". Compound ingredients are broken out.

Emphasis. "The 14 allergens required to be declared by food law must be emphasised within this list. This can be done using bold type, capital letters, contrasting colours or through underlining."

The 14 allergens: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10ppm, and tree nuts.

The information has to be "on the package or on a label attached to the package" (paragraph 101). Signposting to staff, or a QR code in place of the label, does not satisfy the PPDS requirement.

Precautionary allergen labelling is not part of the PPDS requirement. Whether that risk exists in your kitchen is your own risk assessment to make. The FSA's page on that sits beside this test; this checker does not decide it.

The test is about timing, place and packaging, never about what the food is. The same item can be PPDS on one counter and not on another.

The FSA's page on precautionary allergen labelling is Food Standards Agency: precautionary allergen labelling. This checker does not decide that wording for you.

Sources

• GOV.UK: Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food
• GOV.UK: Food allergen labelling and information requirements technical guidance
• GOV.UK: Find your local council
• Food Standards Scotland: prepacked for direct sale

Guidance, not legal advice. Your local environmental health team has the final word.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Crown copyright. Source file last reviewed 23 Aug 2026.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and it decides nothing about a specific product. The food business operator is legally responsible for what appears on the label, always. Software can derive a label from your data; it cannot take on that responsibility, and no tool can certify a product or a business.

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