Food safety and allergy labelling is one of the most important considerations that a café, restaurant or takeaway has to concern itself with, especially if your business is preparing food products on site. In October 2021 Natasha’s Law will come into place, meaning that there will be stricter requirements for pre-packaged food.
Under this law, all ingredients must be listed on individual packaging of food pre-packed for direct sale, for the safety and peace of mind of customers. According to research, 48% of British people are unsure about whether allergy labels are clear, and 15% have zero confidence in them. Making sure your food is correctly and clearly labelled is a great way to gain customer trust and confidence, and businesses who aim to implement the rules head of time will stand out against competitors who are not taking these precautions.
As allergy labelling becomes law, it is important to explore options to make the transition as simple as possible for your business. The law states that as soon as a recipe changes, the label must also change to reflect the new ingredients, as well as making it clear on the label that the recipe has changed. This may take a lot of time if your business is hand writing sticky labels or purchasing pre-printed labels, so it may be more practical to think of a quicker and more efficient way to quickly change food labels.
A solution to this could be Star’s label printers. For pre-packaged, direct sale food Star offers desktop thermal label printers such as the TSP700II and TSP800II and a range of Bluetooth mobile printers, for labelling on the go whilst on the café or shop floor. This option is more cost effective than purchasing sheets of pre-printed labels, enables printing of various label sizes and allows the user to quickly change the ingredients on the label if necessary.
Additionally Star offers linerless re-stick label printers with the TSP654SK model and Bluetooth mobile printers using MaxStick paper. Ideal for food prep and customer order labelling in cafes and fast food environments, these allow the user to print specific customer requirements on to repositionable labels which can simply be placed on orders such as coffee cups, food trays and takeaway bags.
Star printers are USB, LAN, Bluetooth and Cloud enabled for use with a range of different devices and operating systems and include additional features such as splash proof covers and wall mounting for hospitality environments. Star’s unique Hi X interface even allows the user to connect the printer to allergy labelling software and online databases of product ingredients, to update labels as needed. Additionally, the hub functionality with the HI X interface allows a range of scanners to be connected, appropriate software could then allow the user to simply scan barcodes of existing products, check allergens then print an appropriate label, on demand, with no tablet, PC or any other process required.
If allergy labelling is something your business needs to start implementing, Star’s customer success team are always happy to assist and can be contacted here.
