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PPDS label template
Type your ingredients and get a finished PPDS label. Below it: the label sizes UK food businesses actually buy, how much text fits on each, and the legibility floor you cannot go under.
Your product name
Ingredients: Your ingredients will appear here, with allergens in bold capitals.
Your label appears here
Paste an ingredients list on the left. We'll structure it, suggest the allergens and show you a label you can print.
Template
Choosing a label size and printing it
The label itself is three lines of content. The practical decisions are how big it is, what it is printed on, and whether the text stays legible when you get there.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
Common label sizes
These are the sizes label suppliers stock and what each realistically holds. Word counts are guidance at a comfortable reading size, not a promise — a list full of compound ingredients eats space quickly.
| Size | Typically used for | Ingredients it holds |
|---|---|---|
| 38 × 21 mm | Small jars, tags | Very tight. Short lists only — five or six ingredients Under 80 cm² total surface, so the 0.9 mm x-height floor applies |
| 50 × 30 mm | Cookies, small cakes, tubs | About 20–30 words of ingredients at a readable size Usually still under 80 cm² |
| 60 × 40 mm | Brownies, traybakes, pots | 40–60 words. The workhorse size for bakeries A good default if you are buying stock for the first time |
| 70 × 50 mm | Sandwiches, salad boxes | 70–100 words — enough for compound-heavy products Sandwiches need the room; three compound ingredients add up fast |
| 99 × 50 mm | Platters, catering trays, meal boxes | Long lists plus storage and date lines Two labels per A4 row on common sheet stock |
Size it for your worst case
Pick the size your longest ingredients list needs, and use it for everything. Running three label sizes means three stock lines, three printer setups and three chances to grab the wrong roll mid-service.
The legibility floor
Retained UK law sets a minimum x-height of 1.2 mm for mandatory information. Where the largest surface of the packaging is under 80 cm², that drops to 0.9 mm.
X-height is the height of a lower-case “x”, not the font size. A 1.2 mm x-height is roughly a 7–8 pt font in a typical typeface, but it varies — measure a printed sample rather than trusting the number in the dialog box. Full detail: food label font size, the UK rules.
What goes on it
Chicken & Pesto Sandwich
Ingredients: Bread (WHEAT flour, water, yeast, salt), Cooked chicken breast, Pesto (basil, sunflower oil, CASHEW nuts, hard cheese (MILK), garlic, salt), Mayonnaise (rapeseed oil, EGG yolk, vinegar, MUSTARD), Rocket.
Required
- The name of the food
- A full ingredients list, heaviest first
- Allergens emphasised, every time they appear
Optional, and common
- Storage instructions
- A date, for your own rotation
- Your business name
- A precautionary allergen statement, where it genuinely applies
If a product is PPDS, those first three are the requirement. The rest is your choice — and on a small label, leaving them off is often the right call.
Printing
| Thermal roll | A4 sheet labels | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Daily production, labels on demand | Batch printing, getting started cheaply |
| Running cost | Label stock only — no ink | Sheets plus toner |
| Colour | Monochrome | Colour if your printer has it |
| Watch out for | Thermal print fades in heat and sunlight | Part-used sheets jam; alignment drifts |
Because thermal printing is monochrome, bold capitals is the only allergen emphasis method that works on every printer a small food business is likely to own. It is what LabelClear produces by default.
Questions
What size should a PPDS label be?
Can I use one label size for everything?
Does the label have to be printed?
Thermal or sheet labels?
What if the ingredients don’t fit?
Official sources
Everything on this page traces back to these. Where they and we disagree, they are right — tell us and we'll fix it.
- Labelling guidance for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food productsFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
- Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, Article 13 — presentation of mandatory particularslegislation.gov.uk (retained EU law)
- Food labelling: giving food information to consumersGOV.UK
One size, every product, no retyping
Save your ingredients once and print any product at your label size, whenever you need it.
No card required.