April 21, 2025 5 Uses for Food Labels in the Hospitality Industry

Discover information about food labels in the hospitality industry and how they can be used for food hygiene and cataloguing purposes.

Food labels are one of the most important aspects of food marketing and hygiene. Without labels, it can be difficult to track use by dates, ensure stock rotation and warn of allergens efficiently.

Whether you’re a restaurant owner, a sandwich artist or any other business owner in hospitality, here are five top reasons that food labels are essential for everyday food storage and preparation.

1. Allergen Information

One of the quickest and most efficient ways to check allergens is to label it on your food containers.

This helps to avoid potentially dangerous contamination, particularly from major allergens such as nuts, which can cause anaphylactic shock. To further avoid any potential contamination, you can store strictly allergen-free food in colour coded containers to ensure that these ingredients and components are kept separate from others.

2. Dietary Accommodation

For some individuals, dietary requirements are part of a chosen lifestyle, or religious practice, rather than through allergies or intolerances.

For example, many Jewish people will keep Kosher, and Muslims will consume Halal food as part of religious practices and dedication to their beliefs.

Alternatively, others may choose to abide by a vegetarian, vegan or pescetarian diet for health reasons, or simply because they prefer it.

By labelling ingredients or meal components carefully, you can ensure that your customers receive the correct meal for their dietary needs.

3. Efficiency During Food Preparation

In a restaurant or other food preparation environment, things can move fast, especially when you’re preparing dishes fresh to serve.

By labelling containers clearly in a chiller or on a shelf, you are less likely to reach for the wrong ingredients by mistake, particularly for different flours, spices and dried fruits which may look very similar on first inspection.

4. Stock Rotation

One important part of maintaining an excellent hygiene standard in food preparation areas is to use stock rotation. By arranging your stock so that the shortest date is at the front, you can ensure that the food that has been open the longest, or has the shortest sell by date is used first.

An effective labelling system can make sure that you don’t mix up ingredients, or open multiple containers at one time.

If you store these containers in a chiller, the moist environment is likely to make labels deteriorate over time. Using high quality waterproof labels from companies like PID Labelling will set you up for success and help you keep on top of food hygiene standards with ease.

5. Marketing Information for Customers

Other food labels outside the kitchen can also be instrumental for helping customers make informed decisions about the food they consume.

Whether it’s fat, sugar or protein content, specific ingredients they’re avoiding, or a non ultra processed outlook they favour, customers enjoy transparency from retailers and other food manufacturers and distributors around the food they eat.

The Food Standards Agency promotes the use of the traffic light system to help consumers make educated decisions on different foods to supplement their diet. This usually includes fat, salt, sugar, calories and saturates to empower people to make healthier choices at a glance.

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