Bakery labels in the EU: what they must show, and how to get them right at the moment of production

Most labelling problems in a bakery aren’t printer problems. They’re data problems. The recipe changed last Tuesday, the label template didn’t, and now the croissant with the new almond filling is going out with an allergen list that’s one line short. The fix isn’t a better printer. The fix is making sure every label is generated from the same recipe your bakers actually use.

This guide covers what EU and Latvian rules ask a bakery label to show, the three selling situations that change those rules, where bakeries usually slip, and a checklist you can use before the next print run. It’s written from the floor of our own bakery, not from a law office. Treat it as a practical map, and confirm the details for your own products with your food authority (in Latvia, PVD).

Three situations, three sets of rules

The first question isn’t “what goes on the label”. It’s “how is this product sold”. EU Regulation 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, and in Latvia Cabinet Regulation No. 595 on non-prepacked food, treat these three cases differently:

• Prepacked by you, sold in your shops or someone else’s. A sealed bag of rye bread or a box of cookies. This needs the full label described in the next section.
• Packed in your own shop for direct sale. Pastries packed into bags in the morning to speed up the counter. In Latvia these need at least the product name, the allergens, the durability date and the net quantity.
• Sold loose over the counter. The customer points, you pick it up. There’s no label, but the allergen information must still be available in writing. Other information can be given verbally if a clear written notice tells customers where and how to get it.

Most multi-shop bakeries do all three every day, often with the same product. That’s why the information has to live in one place, not on three different sheets.

What a prepacked label must show

For prepacked food, Regulation 1169/2011 lists the mandatory particulars:

• Name of the food.
• List of ingredients, in descending order of weight at the time of mixing.
• Allergens from the EU list of 14, emphasised in the ingredient list itself: bold, capitals or another clear style.
• Quantity of certain ingredients (QUID), when an ingredient is in the name or emphasised (“butter croissant”, “with 30 % walnuts”).
• Net quantity.
• Date of minimum durability or “use by” date. In Latvian: Ieteicams līdz… or Izlietot līdz….
• Storage conditions or conditions of use, where needed.
• Name and address of the business responsible for the food.
• Country of origin, where its absence could mislead.
• Instructions for use, where the food would be hard to use without them.
• Nutrition declaration (energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein, salt per 100 g), unless an exemption applies.

A few details that catch people out

• Text size. The x-height of the mandatory text must be at least 1.2 mm, or 0.9 mm on packs whose largest surface is under 80 cm².
• Language. The information must be in a language easily understood where the food is sold. In Latvia that means Latvian.
• Same field of vision. The name of the food and the net quantity must appear there together.
• Batch code. Latvian rules say the lot marking begins with “L” unless it’s clearly distinguishable from other markings. A lot mark isn’t needed when the date shows at least the day and month.
• Bread exemption. Bread and pastries that are normally eaten within 24 hours of baking may leave out the durability date.
• Nutrition exemption. Food supplied directly by the manufacturer in small quantities to the final consumer, or to local shops that sell to the final consumer, can be exempt from the nutrition declaration. Check with your authority before relying on this. If you supply supermarkets or ship across borders, assume you need it.

Where bakeries usually slip

• Recipe changes that never reach the label. A new supplier’s margarine contains milk. A filling gets a hazelnut crumble. The recipe book is updated; the label template, a separate file, isn’t.
• Allergens hidden in sub-recipes. The croissant’s own ingredient list looks clean. The allergen sits in the frangipane, which is its own recipe. If labels are typed by hand, sub-recipes are where allergens go missing.
• Dates written, not calculated. “Best before” handwritten or typed each morning depends on the person doing it. When we started labelling at Bazaar, it was an Excel sheet feeding a Zebra printer. It worked with one shop and broke when we opened the second.
• The counter can’t answer. A customer asks whether the rye bread has sesame. The shop assistant has to phone the bakery. For loose goods, the written allergen information must already be at the counter.
• No link between the label and the batch. When a supplier recalls an ingredient, you need to know which of your batches used it and where they went. If the label doesn’t carry a batch that points back to production, that question takes days.

Make the recipe the source of the label

Nobody types label content. The label is calculated from the recipe at the moment it’s printed.

That’s the rule we built our system around. In practice it breaks down into five habits:

• One recipe per product, including sub-recipes. Fillings, doughs and toppings are recipes too, and they nest.
• Allergens belong to ingredients, not to products. Mark each purchased ingredient with its EU allergens once. The product’s allergens are derived from everything in it, sub-recipes included.
• The ingredient list is computed, not written. Sort by weight in the recipe and flatten the sub-recipes. When the recipe changes, the list changes with it.
• Shelf life is a property of the product. The date is calculated from the production time and the product’s shelf life, never typed.
• Printing the label records the batch. Who produced it, when, how many, and with which batch number. The label becomes the production record, not a separate step.

We wrote more about that last idea in The Label Is the Source of Truth.

How BakeryMS handles bakery labelling

We built this labelling software in our own bakery, for our own bakers. Here’s what exists today.

• From the recipe, BakeryMS builds the ingredient list. It is sorted by share, with sub-recipes flattened, the allergens from the 14 EU categories, and a nutrition table per 100 g from your ingredient data.
• At the production station, staff print the production label on a standard ZPL printer. The label carries the product name, an EAN-13 or Code-128 barcode, the production date and the calculated best-before date, the producer and a batch number, and storage instructions.
• The same print records the batch in the system. In August 2026, Bazaar’s production printed 12,538 labels this way.
• At the shop counter, staff open a product info sheet. It shows the ingredient list with allergens in bold capitals, the allergen declaration and the nutrition table, in Latvian. That’s the written allergen information loose goods need.

Hardware is ordinary: a tablet and a ZPL label printer. See what to buy and what it costs, read how label production works end to end, or try the demo and print from the demo bakery.

Checklist before your next print run

• Is every product sold prepacked, packed on site, or loose? Do you know which, per shop?
• Is every ingredient marked with its EU allergens, including in fillings and toppings?
• Does the ingredient list come from the current recipe, in descending order of weight?
• Are allergens emphasised in the ingredient list itself?
• Is the date calculated from production time and shelf life, with the right wording (Ieteicams līdz / Izlietot līdz)?
• Is the net quantity on packed products, in the same field of vision as the name?
• Does each label carry a batch you can trace back to production?
• Is the text at least 1.2 mm x-height, and in the local language?
• Can your counter staff show written allergen information for loose products without phoning the bakery?

If three or more answers are “not sure”, start with the recipes. Everything else follows from them.

This article is practical guidance, not legal advice. Rules change and exemptions depend on your products and sales channels; confirm with your food authority (in Latvia, the Food and Veterinary Service, PVD).