How to Create Nutrition Fact Labels for Homemade Food Products

Creating home baked goods is a popular hobby for many people, and for some it is more than just a hobby, it is how they make a living. In addition to farm stands, craft fairs, and farmers markets, there are plenty of stores that carry homemade local goods. For these business owners, creating the right food product labels is crucial fr their success. The trick to selling your homemade products lies in the packaging that you decide to use. In addition to the labeling and the packaging, you also need to include ingredient and nutrition facts labels. These are important for consumers to be able to easily read so they know what is in the product as well as the nutritional value of the product.

Ingredients

The first step to creating both of these labels is writing down all of the ingredients that are in the recipe (this will be all that is needed to make the ingredient label). When listing each ingredient be sure to also write down how much of each is required. Now you need to look at the original package for all of the ingredients so you can reference the nutritional value of each for the amount being used in your recipe. If you are using anything that there is no label for then you can get the proper info at the US Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database.

Nutritional Values

The second step in creating your nutrition label is adding up all of the nutritional value information that you listed out in the first step. Add up each separate nutrient by itself, for example, add all of the calories together, then carbs and so on. List all of this info out separately as well because there is even more to the equation. This is also an important step to double check your math on.

Servings

Once you have all of the nutrients listed out that are included, it is time to figure out how many servings are in the product. When you have determined the amount of servings you now need to divide each nutrient by the amount of total servings. Once you have divided each nutrient by the amount of servings you will have the nutritional value of each serving. To ensure accuracy of the nutrient info per serving, it is a good idea to weigh your goods. For goods that bake as one piece like a cake you can the weigh the finished product when it comes out of the oven. Then you divide this weight by the number of servings to determine the weight of an individual serving. Since serving size is also included on a nutritional label, you now have all of the information that is required.

Labels and Templates

Since you have all of the information that you need, it is now time to get your information typed up and saved on your computer so you have it for the next batch. Once that is done you can start setting up the layout of your nutrition facts label. There are pre made templates online that can help you with this part, just be sure that the template that is used will fit on the label material that you will be printing on. There are many label sizes that can be used for nutritional labels, so this also depends on the appearance that you want for your finished product. Here are a bunch of size options that you can choose from for nutrition labels. On that page you can also click on the size label that you want to go with, and when you get to the actual page for the specific label, you will see templates for that label listed on the right side. (example below) You will also need to decide what type of label material that you will be using. That can also be done when ordering your label stock. One thing to keep in mind here is where the product will be stored. If it is something that people will keep in a refrigerator, freezer, or anywhere that the label will be exposed to moisture, you should consider waterproof labels. For additional information regarding rules and regulations you can read the FDA Guidelines.