summer 2016 Distance selling: food Whether you’re selling chutney made from grandma’s secret recipe, homemade cup cakes, or the produce from your artisan food store, you’ll need to consider the following guidelines if you want to trade over the internet. When you start a mail-order or internet-based food business you must – like any other food business – register with the environmental health department of your local council at least 28 days before opening. You should also take advice from them, and from the trading standards department, on legal requirements. It is vital that you consider the safety aspects of food when selling at a distance; in particular, you should ensure that all perishable foods – such as fish, meat products and cooked foods – marked with a ‘use by’ date reach the customer before this date has expired. If perishable foods are sent by post or courier, they should be delivered as quickly as possible, ideally overnight, and they should be kept cool until delivery. All foods must be delivered to consumers in a way that ensures they do not become injurious to human health or unfit for human consumption. Allergen information must be made available to all customers buying food via a distance sale. For non-prepacked food – such as a takeaway order by telephone or online – the information must be given in writing or orally before the purchase is concluded. It must also be provided in a written format upon delivery; for example, via a menu or a sticker with allergen content on the packaging. For prepacked food, the allergen information should again be made available before purchase, alongside other mandatory food information. Selling food at distance: what you need to know The requirements for distance selling to consumers, rather than businessto- business sales, are that the consumer receives the same information when buying food at a distance as they do when buying in a physical retail environment. So all mandatory food information – except the minimum durability date and date of freezing or first freezing – must be available before the purchase is concluded. All the mandatory food information, including minimum durability date and date of freezing or first freezing, must also be available at the moment of delivery. The information must be available to the consumer with no additional costs. For business-to-business transactions made through distance sales, sufficient information must pass through the chain to allow for legal obligations to the purchaser to be met. The main law on distance selling is the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which applies to all goods sold by distance selling, not just food. This lays down important requirements such as: l Information that the seller needs to give the purchaser before making the sale l Right to cancel the contract l Recovery of sums paid on cancellation l Restoration of goods by the consumer after cancellation It also gives an exception for delivery of food and drink to a consumer’s residence or workplace – for example, milk deliveries. If you are selling via the internet, the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 will also apply to your business. Credit: Stuart Powell Images: BimXD / Shutterstock Proceed to checkout? Just because food is sold online doesn’t mean it can bypass rules and regulations, such as information on allergens If perishable foods are sent by post or courier, they should be delivered as quickly as possible, ideally overnight Getting mandatory nutrition information right The provision of nutrition information is currently voluntary unless a nutrition-related claim is made. However, from 13 December 2016 nutrition information will be mandatory for most pre-packaged foods. Rules governing how the information has to be declared are detailed, but the general principles are outlined below. Mandatory nutrition information should be provided in the following order: l Energy – kcal/kJ l Fat – g: – of which saturates – g l Carbohydrate – g: – of which sugars – g l Protein – g l Salt – g This information should be expressed per 100g or per 100ml and presented in the same field of vision – probably on the back of the pack – and may also be expressed on a ‘per portion’ basis. When declared for a portion or unit (for example, amount per biscuit), the size of a portion/unit must be indicated in conjunction with the number of portions or units contained in the package. Vitamins and minerals in significant amounts can be declared. Amount per 100g/ml and percentage of nutrient reference values (NRV) per 100g/ml must be provided. The following additional ‘supplementary’ nutrients may also be included in the nutrition declaration: monounsaturates, polyunsaturates, polyols, starch and fibre. It is important to recognise that the regulation only mandates nutrition labelling in the same field of vision. However, to help consumers easily see the essential nutrition information, labelling in the principal field of vision – for example, ‘front of pack’ – is also permitted. Specific rules apply if information is repeated on the front of the pack. Voluntary information, such as slogans or claims, must not be presented in a manner that impinges on the presentation of mandatory information. There are a number of foodstuffs that are exempt from the mandatory requirements and these are listed in Annex V of the Provision of Food Information to Consumers Regulations. They include: l Unprocessed products that comprise a single ingredient or category of ingredients l Herbs, spices, salt, chewing gum l Foods in packaging or containers, the largest surface of which has an area of less than 25cm2 l Alcoholic beverages (provisionally exempt) Also included in the exemption is food directly supplied by a small manufacturer to a consumer or local retailer. Please contact your local Trading Standards Service if you require further information on this exemption. find out more More information about online and distance selling can be found at gov.uk Credit: Stuart Powell Images: Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock For further information please contact your local Trading Standards Service