Labels is in the sidebar for shops, grocers, butchers, bakeries and farms.
Start a label
A label belongs to a product. Its name and allergens come from the product, and the allergens you set on the label show on your Local Pass listing too.- Go to Labels and press New label.
- Under Which product is it for?, search your products and pick one.
- Not in your products yet? Type its name. It’s added as a draft: shoppers don’t see it until you give it a price and publish it.
Fill it in
The label page has ten steps. A real-size preview and a checklist sit beside them.- What are you labelling? Pick the closest kind of food. Some foods carry rules of their own. It shows what applies, and asks only what changes the label.
- Who makes it, and where is it sold? Where you make it, and where you sell it. This decides whether you need a Nutrition Facts table, and whether the label needs French.
- Name: the name people know it by, like “Strawberry jam”, and its name in French.
- Ingredients: everything that goes into it, heaviest first.
- Allergens: printed in a “Contains” line that names every one, even those already in the ingredients. You can add a “May contain” line, only for something that may get in by accident.
- Net quantity: the food alone, without the jar or bag.
- Nutrition Facts: the table of calories and nutrients, if you need one.
- Best before and storage: how long it keeps after you make it, and how to store it.
- Your name and address: at least your city and province. A street address is better. A website or phone number doesn’t count.
- Look: the label size and colour. The regulated text always prints black, at the legal minimum size or bigger.
Where you make it, and where it’s sold
You pick one place you make it, and one way you sell it:- I make it and sell it myself, only at farmers’ markets, fairs or roadside stands
- I make it in my own shop or bakery and sell it there
- Any other way: other stores sell it, it’s made elsewhere, or it ships
If you pick My home kitchen, the page reminds you: BC’s market guideline lets home-made food be sold only in person at temporary food markets, with a sign saying the kitchen isn’t inspected. Selling it online normally needs a kitchen your health authority has approved. Check with Island Health on Vancouver Island.
Ingredients and your ingredient library
Add each ingredient with how many grams go into one batch. Once every weight is in, the list sorts itself heaviest first, and the Nutrition Facts can be worked out. Each ingredient is saved once for your store, in your ingredient library. A change carries over to every label that uses it. For an ingredient you buy ready-made, add what it’s made of, from its package. It prints in brackets after it. You can also note where you buy it. That’s saved with every batch you print, so if a supplier ever recalls something, your batch log shows which of your batches used it. Something you make yourself, like a pastry or a filling, can be grouped. It prints as one ingredient with its parts in brackets: “Pastry (wheat flour, butter, water, salt)”. The tool also reads your ingredients for allergens. For example, butter suggests milk, and flour suggests wheat. Your recipes and weights are private to your store. Shoppers never see them.Nutrition Facts
Whether you need a table depends on who makes the food and where it’s sold. The step tells you. Pick What kind of food is it? and set the Serving size. Then choose Where the numbers come from:- Work them out from my recipe: from your ingredients’ weights and Canada’s food values.
- Type them from a lab report: or from labelling software. They’re rounded the way the rules say.
The checklist
Beside the form, What’s on your label shows each item as done, to do, or to check. It never says your label complies, and it never stops you printing. When everything’s done: print a test sheet and read it once more before you label a batch.Print a batch
Press Print, then:- Set Made on: the day you made the batch. The Best before date fills in from how long it keeps.
- Check the Batch code.
- Pick a size: letter label sheets (4 × 2 in sheet, 10 per sheet, Avery 5163 and equivalents, or 4 × 3⅓ in sheet, 6 per sheet, Avery 5164 and equivalents) or a roll for a label printer.
- On a sheet, set Already used on the first sheet to start after labels you’ve already used.
- Press Print with the number of labels.
Batch log
Every batch you print goes into the Batch log on the Labels page: when it was made, the product, the batch code and the best-before date. Press Download CSV to save it. Keep it for two years: it lets you find a batch fast if there’s ever a problem.Ordering from a print shop
On the label page, Download print file (PDF) makes a print-ready file with the 1/8 in bleed and crop marks print shops ask for. The Nutrition Facts go on page 2. A shop prints the same label every time, so the file leaves a blank for the best-before date and batch code. Stamp or write them on, and record each batch with Print → Log the batch only.Delete a label
A label with printed batches can’t be deleted. Its batches are kept for two years. A label you’ve never printed can be deleted, along with anything only it uses.Food business guide
The Food business guide on localpass.ca covers BC permits, rules, kitchens and labels. From the Labels page:- Commercial kitchens, if you need a licensed kitchen to make your food in
- Co-packers on Vancouver Island, if you want someone to make it for you