Requirements of Beverage Labels

Labels are used in many aspects of business marketing. They provide a complete identification for the product that is being sold. They normally include the makers of the product, where it was manufactured, the product name, ingredients, and nutritional value. All of this information is valuable to consumers.

Some companies are required to have their labels approved before they are allowed to place them on products and sale or ship them to be sold. This approval comes from several locations, including the FDCA, Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the FDA, the Food and Drug Association.

With alcoholic beverage labels or liquor labels, there are other requirements that labels must meet before they are allowed to be sold in the open market. These labels must be preapproved by the TTB, or the Tax and Trade Bureau. The TBB is a part of the ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau, and is responsible for issuing certification for beverages that contain alcohol. Between the import and export laws with specific countries, it is very difficult to sell some alcoholic beverages globally without the label approval of the TBB. Included in the category of alcohol are wines, beers, malt liquors, and other beverages that you find in your local stores with an alcohol percentage.

Beverages that do not contain alcohol also have a set of regulations that they must adhere to before being able to have a label and sold to consumers. Beverage labels fall into the Food and Nutrition division of the FDA. They must supply the consumer with the list of ingredients in each product whether it is liquid or solid. The label must also have the content percentage of sugar, cholesterol, fat, total fat, and sodium. The consumer benefits from knowing this information because they are able to make accurate dietary decisions.

Beverage labels provide consumers with knowledge about what is in the bottle. Some labels even advertise other products that are sold by the same company. A new trend in the past decade has been adding websites to labels. Almost every label on the market, whether it is a beverage label, liquor label, or a food label, has a website for the manufacturer of that specific product. It is a marketing strategy used to inform consumers about the product in which they are consuming and to advertise other products that they have available that suits the consumers’ current product choices. Websites can be a very useful tool when labeling any type of product.

[8/11/2014]