You would think that having an in-house team solves the labelling problem. In my experience, it does not, at least not by itself. My honest answer is the same one I give manufacturers of any size: do the market research, and make sure someone on your team, or a food label consultant working alongside them, genuinely knows the current regulations, not just the general rules everyone learned years ago. Knowing what your customer thinks is just as important as knowing the rule book. If the label does not show the customer what the product is worth, they will not know.
Having a team does not automatically mean that knowledge is current, connected across departments, or applied consistently to every product line.
Can a Nutrient Claim Be Legally Correct and Still Fail Commercially?
Yes, and this is the exact problem I see most often with larger manufacturers. A team will put “high protein” or “more protein” on a label, and it is technically accurate and meets the required threshold. But the claim does not give the customer any sense of what that value actually means to them. At a premium price point, that gap matters even more, because the customer expects the label to justify the price, not just state a fact.
This is worth naming directly. Regulatory correctness and commercial persuasion are two different jobs. A nutrient content claim can pass every compliance check and still fail to do the one thing it needs to do on a premium product, which is to convince the customer the value is real.
Where Larger Teams Still Get Caught Out with Label Issues?
The mistake I see repeatedly, even with manufacturers who have marketing, packaging, and quality departments, is that the design side and the regulatory side are not talking to each other early enough. A designer builds a beautiful premium label without checking it line by line against current regulations, assuming someone else will catch it, and sometimes no one does until it is too late in the process.
The underlying issue is often not a lack of resources. Larger manufacturers usually know where the resources are. The issue is not knowing precisely what to check for on every claim, particularly newer or more nuanced claims tied to premium positioning, where the line between a permitted claim and an overstated one is narrower than people expect.
What Actually Works, Even With an In-House Team?
The practice that works here is the same discipline I recommend to every manufacturer, applied more rigorously given the volume and stakes involved: a full label review before printing, checked against the current nutrition label resources and regulations, not assumed to be correct because it was correct on a previous product line.
Bringing in a food label consultant for this review, even when you have an in-house team, adds a second, independent set of eyes that is specifically focused on labelling regulations rather than balancing that responsibility against ten other priorities. I have seen manufacturers of every size end up with piles of labels they cannot use because a cla
im was not caught before printing. At a larger production volume, that mistake is expensive in a way that makes the review cost look small by comparison.
Why Double Checking Your Food Label Can Help Reduce Regulatory Withdrawal and/Or Recall?
This matters for everyone, but it matters most for the manufacturer that does not have a dedicated in-house team, because there may be no second check at all.
If you do have an in-house team, do not assume that means the check is happening.
- Confirm who owns the final label sign-off, and confirm that the person is checking against current claim regulations, not institutional habit.
How Can You Get CFIA Food Label Correct?
Before your next premium product launch, have someone outside the design process, ideally a food label consultant, run a full claim-by-claim review against current nutrient content regulations.
Do this even if you have an experienced in-house team. The review is not a sign your team is falling short. It is the same discipline that protects any manufacturer, at any size, from a print run that cannot go to market.
If you want a fresh, independent review of your current labelling before your next launch, book a complimentary strategy call to see how we can work together.