Checking every claim before the pack is printed

Before any pack is printed, every line of text on it must point back to a source: the recipe, the specification, an analysis report, a certificate held by our partner facilities, or a regulation. A line that points nowhere comes off, however good it sounds. That is how our value Speak Honestly applies to the most reproduced piece of writing in the company: the label. This piece walks through the check line by line, so that candidates can picture one part of the R&D and marketing work, and partners understand why we ask so many questions before releasing a print file.

Why the pack is the hardest place to be honest

A social post can be corrected in a minute. A wrong label sits on every pack of a production run, in the warehouse, on the shelf, in the buyer's hand. The label is also a legal document: ingredients, allergens, shelf life and manufacturer details each have their own rules, and every market writes those rules differently.

Harder still, a label is written by several people. R&D supplies the ingredients, marketing the words, the designer the layout, and the partner facility the batch code and production date. Each trusts that the others got their part right. So there has to be one final pass, done by one person, against a fixed list.

Four groups of lines and where each is checked

We sort the text on a pack into four groups, each with one source to check against:

• Recipe lines: product name, ingredient list in descending order, allergen statement. Source: the approved recipe of the version that will be produced, not the trial version.
• Specification lines: net weight, nutrition table, shelf life, storage. Source: the spec sheet and the analysis report for the reference batch.
• Certificates and symbols: the Halal logo, facility codes, origin. Source: the valid certificate held by our partner facilities, with this product inside its scope.
• Legal lines: the legal entity name and address, directions for use, and the mandatory statements for the target market. Source: the regulation and the company documents.

The list is printed and each line is ticked. Until every line is ticked, nothing goes to the printer.

The lines that slip through

In our experience the mistake is rarely in the nutrition table, because everyone looks there. It hides in the small lines:

• The short descriptive sentence on the front, written at the idea stage and never updated when the recipe changed.
• A word about ingredient origin after the supplier changed.
• A certificate logo kept on the pack while the certificate is in renewal, or with a scope that does not cover this product.
• A sentence about health benefits that no regulation allows in that form.
• The second language on the pack not matching the first.

The last one matters for a company preparing for export. A bilingual label is checked once per language, not once for both.

The time we removed a sentence

A label draft for one PLAY Protein Bar flavour carried a phrase on the front about a high protein content. It sounded right for the brand. During the check, the person responsible asked two questions: which number proves it, and which regulation in the target market allows that phrase with that number.

The number existed, from an analysis report. But the recipe was still being adjusted for the binder, and the version going to print was not certain to be the version that had been analysed. As for the regulation, every market sets its own threshold for that phrase. The decision: remove the phrase, keep the nutrition table with the real figures of the version going into production. Once the recipe is final and analysed again, the phrase can return at the next print run if it qualifies. The label lost a good sentence. We kept a true one.

A process light enough for a small team

A small team has no legal department, so the process has to be light enough that nobody skips it:

• One person does the check, then signs and dates the proof.
• A second person reads the proof one last time for spelling and numbers only, without changing content.
• The signed proof is filed with the print file and the specification version it belongs to.
• Any change after signing goes back to the start of the check.

It sounds strict. In practice a check takes a few hours, and it is cheaper than any reprint.

If careful checking and saying things exactly appeal to you, have a look at the Fresher Product R&D (FMCG) and Marketing Leader roles in Hanoi. If you are a printer or packaging supplier, get in touch and we will share our checklist before we start.