Prepackaged Food Labelling Requirements in the Philippines: All 11 Mandatory Items

Philippine food labelling requirements: 11 mandatory items on every prepackaged label

Prepackaged food sold in the Philippines must carry 11 mandatory label items: product name, brand or trademark, complete list of ingredients, net contents and drained weight, name and address of the manufacturer / repacker / importer / distributor, lot identification, storage condition, expiry date, food allergen information, directions for use, and nutrition facts. The rules come from Department of Health Administrative Order No. 2014-0030, which covers all prepackaged food including food supplements, locally made or imported alike.

Why Philippine food labelling requirements deserve separate attention. Food carries the highest label rejection rate of any regulated category, and the failures cluster in specific format rules rather than broad principles — the month spelled out, allergens directly beneath the ingredients, net contents set parallel to the package base. These are pass/fail at a glance.

One overarching principle first: prepackaged food may not be described or presented in any label in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive, or likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character. Any violation renders the product misbranded, with the responsible person subject to the actions and penalties available to the FDA under Republic Act No. 3720 as amended by Executive Order No. 175 and Republic Act No. 9711.

A non-compliant label is not a reprint-next-time problem — the product is deemed misbranded, and stock already in the warehouse has to be relabelled or shipped back. Have Yixing review the artwork before it goes to press →

Product name, brand and ingredients: the three most-rejected items

Item 1, the product name. The rules are finer than most expect:

• The name must be specific, not generic, and indicate the true nature of the food.
• Where a food standard establishes a name, one of those names must be used; otherwise a common or usual name, or a descriptive name that is not misleading.
• A coined or fanciful name may be used only if it accompanies one of the above. Foreign brands frequently trip here — transliterating an invented brand into the product name without declaring the actual nature of the food.
• Additional words must appear where needed to state packing medium, form or style and the treatment undergone — dried, freeze-dried, concentrated, smoked, reconstituted.
• The name must appear prominently on the principal display panel in bold type, sized reasonably in relation to the largest printed matter on that panel, such as the trademark or brand name.

Item 2, brand name or trademark. Where an establishment holds a registered brand or trademark, indicating it correctly is mandatory. The brand must be placed in conjunction with the product name and must not mislead. No brand name identical to one already registered with the FDA in the same product classification is allowed, nor any that is offensive, obscene or contrary to public morals. An identical brand is permitted where authorised by the same brand owner.

Item 3, the complete list of ingredients. The most technical item:

• Required except for single-ingredient foods, headed by a title consisting of or including the term "ingredient."
• Declared in descending order of proportion, on either the principal display or information panel.
• Added water must be declared; water forming part of a compound ingredient such as brine, syrup or broth, and water or volatile ingredients that evaporate during manufacture, need not be.
• A compound ingredient may be declared as such if immediately followed, in brackets, by its own ingredients in descending order. Where a compound ingredient is less than 5% of the food, its ingredients — other than food additives serving a technological function in the finished product — need not be declared.
• A specific name must be used rather than a collective name, unless a general class name is more informative and consistent with other regulations.
• Flavours must be declared as "Natural Flavor(s)," "Nature-identical flavor(s)" or "Artificial Flavor(s)"; combinations of natural and nature-identical may be declared simply as "Flavors."
• Colours derived from or identical with plant-derived substances are declared as "Food Color(s)" or "Color(s)"; coal-tar dyes and other synthetic compounds as "Artificial Color(s)."
• Food additives must be declared by common name together with their functional category.
• Processing aids and additives carried over below the level needed for technological function need not be declared.

Run a typical export ingredient panel against these and at least two items usually need work: flavours declared without classification, and colours not distinguished as natural or artificial.

Net contents and lot codes: even the print direction is prescribed

Item 4. Four hard rules govern net content:

1. Declare using the metric system or SI units, on either the principal display or information panel, and parallel to the base of the package. The orientation is written into the rule, not a convention.
2. Method: liquid foods by volume; solid foods by weight, except that foods sold by number carry a declaration of count; semi-solid or viscous foods by either weight or volume.
3. Foods packed in a liquid medium normally discarded before consumption must carry a drained weight declaration. Liquid medium here means water, aqueous solutions of sugar and salt, fruit juices in canned fruit only, vegetable juices in canned vegetables only, or vinegar, singly or combined. Canned goods miss this most often.
4. Multi-unit retail packages must state on the outside package the number of individual units, the net content of each, and in parentheses the total quantity.

The order's own worked formats are:

• "20 x 10 g sachets (net wt. 200 g)"
• "6 x 300 ml bottles (1.8 L or 1000 ml)"

Follow the format rather than improvising. A construction like "200g (20 sachets)" will come back for amendment.

Item 6, lot identification. The lot code must be embossed or otherwise permanently marked on each immediate package or container. Note "permanently" — an ordinary adhesive label or water-based inkjet code that rubs off does not satisfy it. The single exemption: prepackaged foods in multi-unit retail packages with a surface area of less than 10 cm², such as candies, when sold together with the primary packaging.

Item 7, storage condition. Products requiring special storage other than normal room temperature must carry the storage condition printed clearly, conspicuously and indelibly on all product labels. Chilled and frozen goods should note that this also bears on how storage conditions are checked at import.

Manufacturer, importer and country of origin: imports carry two extra items

Item 5. Locally manufactured products declare the name and address of the manufacturer, repacker, packer, importer, trader or distributor. Imported products carry 3 additional rules:

• For imported products, the complete name and address of the importer and the country of origin must be declared. These are the two items imports carry beyond local goods, and omitting either draws a rejection.
• Where the prepackaged food is not manufactured by the company named on the label, the name must be qualified by "Manufactured for" or "Packed for" or a similar expression. Particularly relevant to OEM production.
• For products carrying foreign brands or manufactured under licence by a foreign company, the foreign company's name and address must be in letters of a type and size not bigger than those used for the local company. Easy to overlook — printing the parent company larger than the Philippine importer is a clear breach.

Country of origin has its own determination rule: where a food undergoes processing in a second country which changes its nature, the second country is considered the country of origin for labelling purposes. This matters in transshipment and offshore repacking, and it interacts with origin declarations at import — see the Form E and RCEP guide.

Where a manufacturer has plants in several cities or towns, the corporate head office address suffices, provided every food package carries a code or mark identifying the processing plant.

One optional but useful item: the Food Authorization Number (FAN) may be printed clearly and indelibly on the principal display or information panel, and a sticker is permitted. The FAN consists of the LTO number and the FR number — meaning your FDA licence number appears on the packaging. It also means that changing the licence holder can obsolete artwork already printed; see FDA License to Operate renewal.

Expiry date and allergens: two rules that fail at a glance

Item 8, the expiry date. The single most commonly failed rule, and the easiest to spot.

The expiration or expiry date must be printed clearly, conspicuously and legibly on all product labels (except alcoholic beverages) in the order Day, Month, Year; the day and year are declared numerically while the month must be declared in words to avoid confusion. The order's examples are "Expiry date: 01 January 2012" or "01Jan12".

Why words? Because "01/02/2026" reads as 2 January in some markets and 1 February in others. An all-numeric date is not a valid date declaration in the Philippines, and the rule leaves no room for interpretation.

Printing 01/02/2026 fails — the month has to be spelled out, as 01 February 2026 or 01Feb26. Discovering this after the run is printed means relabelling the entire batch. Send the artwork to Yixing before you cut the plates →

Item 9, food allergen information. For products containing the ingredients below, allergen information must be indicated clearly, conspicuously and indelibly, located directly below the list of ingredients, in forms such as "Contains food allergen: egg", "Allergen Information: may contain ___", "Manufactured in equipment that processes ___" or similar.

The 8 groups that must always be declared:

1. Cereals containing gluten — wheat, rye, barley, oat, spelt or their hybridised strains, and products of these
2. Crustaceans and products thereof
3. Eggs and egg products
4. Fish and fish products
5. Peanuts, soybeans and products thereof
6. Milk and milk products, lactose included
7. Tree nuts and nut products
8. Sulphite in concentrations of 10 mg/kg or more

The FDA may add further ingredients through appropriate issuance. Note the 10 mg/kg threshold on sulphites — dried fruit, preserved fruit, some wines and certain starch products commonly exceed it without declaring.

Position is equally binding: directly below the ingredient list. Not elsewhere on the back panel, and not only on the shipping carton.

When nutrition labelling is required: format, tolerances and 11 exemptions

Item 11, nutrition facts. Nutrition facts are presented in tabulated form, declaring protein, carbohydrates (including dietary fibre and sugar), fat (including saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol), sodium, and energy or calories. Added Vitamin A, iron and iodine must be included for products covered by the Food Fortification Program, as must vitamins, minerals or other nutrients such as fatty acids and linolenic acid where the product claims to contain them.

Units: carbohydrates, protein, fats (cholesterol in mg), sugar and dietary fibre in the nearest gram (g); energy in calories (kcal); sodium in mg; vitamins and minerals in milligrams (mg) or micrograms (mcg), with International Units (I.U.) for Vitamins A, D and E.

Reference values: locally manufactured products intended for local consumption must also indicate the corresponding Recommended Energy and Nutrient Intake (RENI) percentage in whole numbers. % RENI is computed against male adults aged 19 to 29; products intended for a specific group use that group's RENI and say so. Nutrients present at less than 2% of the RENI are indicated by "contains less than 2% RENI" or an asterisk.

The tolerances are the numbers to remember:

A separate requirement applies independently: nutrient content shall in no case be lower than 80% of the declared value at any point within the expected shelf-life. Declared values therefore cannot be set tight against a fresh-from-the-line assay — leave headroom for degradation, particularly for vitamins.

The 11 nutrition labelling exemptions:

1. Foods for Special Dietary Uses and Foods for Special Medical Purposes covered by a separate guideline or Codex standard
2. Bottled drinking water with its own prescribed labelling guidelines
3. Prepackaged foods in multi-unit retail packages with surface area under 10 cm² (such as candies) when sold with the primary packaging
4. Foods served or sold in restaurants and similar settings — schools, cafeterias, trains, aeroplanes, retail stores — not labelled or prepackaged, for immediate consumption
5. Foods containing insignificant amounts of all listed nutrients, such as coffee, most spices, flavour extract and food colour
6. Bulk materials for further manufacturing or repacking
7. Packages with available label space of less than 10 cm², such as a pack of gum, provided no health or nutrition claim is made
8. Food sold from bulk containers except products covered by R.A. 8976, provided nutrition information is given at point of sale
9. Foods for infants and young children such as infant formula and follow-up formula, which follow their own labelling standard
10. Alcoholic beverages
11. Other products identified by the FDA through appropriate issuance

Foreign-language labels: the English sticker window is only 6 months

The section exporters most need.

Language rule: the language used for all information on the label shall be English or Filipino or a combination. For imported food products, labels declaring information in a foreign language must always carry the corresponding English translation.

There is exactly one exception, and it is narrow: in cases of exhaustion of existing labels permitted by the FDA, a provisionary sticker label carrying the English or Filipino translation is allowed for a maximum period of 6 months. Three conditions attach:

• All information must be accurate and legible;
• It must be contained in a single sticker — not several stickers covering different panels;
• The sticker must be durable, meaning it cannot be easily removed from the label or packaging.

Read closely and several common practices collapse:

• Shipping foreign-language retail packs and stickering on arrival as standard practice — no. The allowance exists for exhausting already-approved labels, not as a routine import channel. Compliant labels belong on the production line.
• Multiple small stickers covering ingredients, nutrition and allergens separately — no. A single sticker is required.
• An ordinary peel-off label — no. It must resist easy removal.
• "We will fix it after six months" — 6 months is the ceiling, not the starting point.

Relying on English stickers to bring foreign-language packaging into the Philippines means betting a whole shipment on an exception clause: approved-labels-exhausted only, 6 months maximum, one sticker, non-removable. Have Yixing build a compliant Philippine label from the source →

Two product types carry extra requirements:

• Alcoholic beverages: in addition to the general requirements, the alcohol content in percentage by volume or proof units must be indicated.
• Irradiated foods: prepackaged irradiated food at retail must carry the international logo for irradiated food and the statement "treated by irradiation" or its equivalent, in addition to the mandatory labelling. Irradiated food for wholesale or distribution must be accompanied by documents stating the irradiation facility and its address, the licence number of the facility and its validity period, the date of irradiation, and the purpose of irradiation.

Medical devices operate under a separate labelling regime including relabelling rules — compare Philippine medical device labelling requirements. Supplement-specific claim limits are in food supplement registration.

Sixteen prohibited claim types: where templated packaging fails

The order enumerates 16 categories (A through P) of representations that constitute misleading, deceptive or untruthful declaration. Several recur constantly on imported food:

• "Free from" claims about something the product never contained. The rule expressly prohibits claims on the absence of any substance when the food does not contain such ingredient. A product that never used preservatives cannot claim "no preservatives." Likewise, claims on the absence of beef or pork or their derivatives, lard, or added alcohol are prohibited if the food does not contain such ingredient.
• Disease claims. Prohibited: that the food, because of the presence or absence of certain dietary properties, is adequate or effective in the prevention, cure, mitigation or treatment of any disease or symptom.
• Disparaging ordinary diet. Prohibited: that a balanced diet of ordinary foods cannot supply adequate nutrients.
• Synthetic versus natural. Prohibited: that a synthetic vitamin in a food is superior to a natural vitamin.
• Fear-based claims. Prohibited: claims that could give rise to doubt about the safety of similar food or arouse or exploit fear in the consumer.
• Meaningless comparatives and superlatives. Incomplete comparatives and superlatives are prohibited.
• Good-hygiene adjectives. Claims such as "wholesome," "healthful" or "sound" are prohibited.
• Photographs and graphics. Photographs of fruits, vegetables, poultry, fish, meat or eggs, fresh or cooked, whole or sliced, shall not appear on the label unless the product contains such materials or substances naturally derived from them. Where flavouring has been added to boost or reinforce a natural flavour, the words "Flavor Added" must appear conspicuously and in close proximity to the photograph. Graphic representations are acceptable provided they do not vividly illustrate the actual appearance of the material. Pictures of dishes may appear on products used as ingredients, such as sauce mixes, provided "Serving Suggestion" or an equally prominent statement appears with the picture.
• Place names. Place names may form part of a product name if the product is produced in that place, or contains the characterising ingredient and is prepared in exactly the same manner. In the latter case, where the place cited is in another country, it must be qualified by the word "style" unless the reference is accepted as a generic term for that product.

Against a typical imported food pack, two failures dominate: lush fruit photography on a product flavoured rather than fruited, without "Flavor Added"; and "zero additives" or "no preservatives" claims on products that never contained them.

Nutrition and health claims additionally follow Bureau Circular No. 2007-002 on the Use of Nutrition and Health Claims in Food and the corresponding Codex guidelines. Claims outside those guidelines are evaluated on submitted substantiation. Declarations such as Halal, Kosher and organic must likewise be substantiated.

Small-package exemptions, and what non-compliance actually triggers

Philippine food labelling requirements carve out small packages, but the opening is narrower than it appears.

General rule: where a label is so small that it prevents use of the prescribed letter size, or where the information is secondary or optional, letters of proportionately reduced size may be used, provided the prescribed particulars remain visible and legibly shown and the designated label space is proportional to the package. For other small packages that cannot accommodate label information, only the brand name and product name may be indicated — but these shall not be sold separately or at retail.

Three express exemptions:

1. Food materials served in restaurants or airline catering, not labelled and prepackaged, available for immediate consumption — schools, cafeterias, trains, aeroplanes, retail stores.
2. Bulk food materials including raw materials, ingredients and processed foods for further processing, repacking, catering or food service and not intended for retail sale, on condition they are properly identified and product specifications are provided in supporting documents.
3. Foods in primary packages with available label space of less than 10 cm² such as gum or individually wrapped candies, provided the secondary packaging contains all the required labelling information.

The final clause of the third is the operative one: the primary pack may be simplified, but the secondary pack must be complete. Reading "individual sweet wrappers are exempt" as "the bag is exempt too" is a misreading.

What non-compliance triggers: any violation of the order renders the food product misbranded, and such misbranded products and the responsible person are subject to the actions and penalties available to the FDA under Republic Act No. 3720 as amended by Executive Order No. 175 and further amended by Republic Act No. 9711 and its implementing rules.

The transitory structure is instructive too. When the order took effect, products with an existing valid Certificate of Product Registration were given a non-extendible 12 months to exhaust old labels; products with a pending renewal likewise had 12 months but had to submit compliant labels; new products and those with pending initial applications had to comply immediately. After 12 months, non-compliant products were deemed misbranded. That pattern shows how the FDA handles labelling changes generally: a run-out period for existing stock, and no tolerance for new products.

Ten checks before the artwork goes to press

Work through the food labelling requirements once more before the file reaches the printer:

1. Product name is specific rather than generic; any coined name is accompanied by a common or descriptive name; bold on the principal display panel, sized against the largest printed matter.
2. Registered brand is shown and does not duplicate a registered brand in the same classification.
3. Ingredients in descending order; flavours classified as natural, nature-identical or artificial; colours distinguished as food or artificial; additives carry their functional category.
4. Net contents in metric units parallel to the package base; drained weight declared where a liquid medium is used; multi-unit packs follow the "20 x 10 g sachets (net wt. 200 g)" format.
5. Importer's full name and address plus country of origin declared; foreign company lettering no larger than the local company's; contract-manufactured goods qualified with "Manufactured for."
6. Lot code embossed or otherwise permanently marked, not an erasable inkjet code.
7. Storage condition stated where anything beyond room temperature is required.
8. Expiry date as day, month, year with the month in words.
9. All 8 allergen groups checked and declared directly below the ingredient list; sulphites verified against the 10 mg/kg threshold.
10. Nutrition facts tabulated with prescribed items and units, % RENI computed against male adults aged 19 to 29, tolerances of 80% and 120% observed with headroom for shelf-life decay — or confirmation that one of the 11 exemptions applies.

Plus one meta-rule: every claim must be substantiable. Each adjective on the pack needs supporting material when questioned.

From artwork review and converting foreign-language labels into compliant Philippine versions, through allergen and nutrition calculations, to fitting labelling into FDA registration and customs clearance, Yixing's product access team can walk the file before you commit to plates. Labelling has the steepest change-cost curve in compliance — a word changed at design costs nothing, and the same word changed after printing costs a full relabelling run. Send us the artwork and ingredient panel for a pre-review.

See also: FDA product registration: LTO and CPR, the customs clearance process, permits for a food business in the Philippines.

Disclaimer: This article is a general overview and not legal advice. The mandatory items, format rules, allergen list, tolerances and exemptions are summarised from Department of Health Administrative Order No. 2014-0030 and its amendments; that order has been amended, and current FDA issuances govern. Obtain professional advice or confirm with the FDA for your specific formulation, packaging and claims before going to market.