Labels built for the demands of food production
Labelneeds is a UK label manufacturer. We print the labels that go on food, for the businesses that make it - and we have been doing it since 1983.
Food production is an unforgiving place to put a label.
The pack is cold, or wet, or greasy, or all three. The line does not stop for you. The artwork carries allergen information that has to be right. And the label has to look identical to the one you printed eight months ago, because someone in a retail technical team will compare them.
That is the job we have been doing for food manufacturers for over forty years. Not as one sector among many - it is what the factory is set up for, what the certification is for, and what the people here know.
The requirement
Five things a food manufacturer needs from a label supplier.
Food contact manufacturing
We manufacture labels for food contact applications. Where a label will sit against food, that is a specification decision taken deliberately at quotation - the material and the ink are chosen for the job rather than assumed to be fine.
More on food contact labelsBRCGS Packaging certification
We hold Grade A certification to the BRCGS Packaging Materials standard. It is independently audited, which is what makes it useful to you: it is the evidence your own food safety audit looks for when it examines how you approve and monitor suppliers.
Quality and compliance in detailRetail supply chain experience
Many of our customers pack for the major grocers, so we are used to work that has to satisfy a retail technical team as well as your own: artwork sign-off held on record, colour that holds across a programme, barcodes that scan first time.
Consistent quality
Flexo consistency is mechanical, not a matter of operator judgement: the anilox roll meters a fixed, repeatable volume of ink at every station. Combined with standards held on file rather than matched off the last delivery, that is why run forty looks like run one.
Reliable production
Labels are a small line on your cost sheet and a total constraint on your ability to despatch. We plan against your production dates, hold your specifications so a repeat is a call rather than a project, and tell you straight when a date is tight instead of finding out together later.
The pressures you are under
We have watched all five of these go wrong elsewhere.
Consistency
Colour that drifts between runs is a conversation with your retail technologist that nobody wants. We manage colour so batch forty looks like batch one, and we keep the standards on file rather than re-matching from a printed sample each time.
Traceability
Every job is traceable back through its batch, its material and its approved artwork version. If you ever need to establish what was printed, when, and against which sign-off, the record exists.
Compliance
Grade A BRCGS Packaging certification and food contact label manufacturing, so the supplier-approval part of your own audit is straightforward rather than a project.
Production deadlines
A label is a small part of your cost and the whole of your ability to despatch. We plan around your production dates, not ours, and we say so honestly when a date is tight.
Reliable supply
Held specifications, understood reorder patterns and a factory that has been running since 1983. The point of a long-term supplier is that supply stops being something you manage.
If one of these five is the reason you are reading this page, say so when you get in touch and we will answer that one first.
Request a quoteWorth planning for
Two things that will put artwork back on your desk.
Neither of these is a reason to change supplier. Both are a reason to know who is printing your labels before the deadline rather than after it.
- 13 December 2026
Folic acid in flour
Fortification of non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid becomes mandatory in the UK from 13 December 2026, and there is no labelling transition period attached to it. The change propagates into the ingredients declaration of anything made with wheat flour, which for a bakery or a sauce producer is most of the range at once.
- October 2027
The deposit return scheme
In-scope drinks containers will need to carry the scheme logo and a return identifier. If you pack drinks, plan on reworking artwork and on barcode changes across the range rather than a logo drop into existing space.
We print labels, we do not give regulatory advice, and the responsibility for what a pack declares sits with the business placing it on the market. What we can do is get the artwork through origination and onto the press without the deadline becoming a problem - and tell you early if your run length and our schedule are going to disagree.
Switching supplier
Changing label supplier is not as painful as you think.
The most common reason a manufacturer stays with a supplier they have stopped rating is that moving looks like work. Here is what it actually involves.
Send us what you have
Existing artwork, a sample label, or just the pack itself. We can work back to a specification from a physical label.
We review the specification
Often we find the current label is over-specified for what it does, or under-specified for where it goes. Both are worth knowing before you reorder it.
Approval pack
Certification, specifications and the documents your technical team needs to add us to your approved supplier list.
Proof, trial, run
Proofed and signed off before anything runs, and where the application is the risk, trialled on your line before you commit to a full quantity.
Reviewing your label supplier?
Let's talk.
Tell us what you make, how it is packed and what your current labels are not doing. We will come back with a specification and a straight quote.