Six mandatory items, and the two that matter

Most of what appears on a label is there because the law requires it. The producer chose almost none of it, which is precisely why those fields are the reliable part of the packaging.

Two of them decide everything that follows. One lets you calculate what the product actually costs per milligram; the other lets you tie it to a laboratory report. Everything else on the front of the pack is presentation.

This page goes through the mandatory items, explains what each one is for, identifies the two that carry the weight, and lists the phrasings that indicate a seller has stepped outside the framework.

⚠️ Scope. This page describes a process and what can be verified from documents. It does not describe what a product does to a person, gives no amounts, and does not replace a healthcare professional.

🔴 What regulation requires

The framework

Food information rules set at Union level determine what must appear on a food product sold to consumers, in a legible form and in the language of the country of sale.

The core items

A product name, an ingredient list in descending order of quantity, a net quantity, a durability date, storage conditions where relevant, and an identifiable business operator.

What this achieves

It makes the essential facts comparable across producers. Anything a seller adds beyond this is optional and therefore chosen.

Where the framework changes

A product applied to skin falls under cosmetics rules instead, with a different but comparable set of mandatory items.

The product name

What it must convey

The nature of what is inside, in terms a buyer understands. A trade name alone does not satisfy this.

Why it matters here

Products in this category are often named in ways that describe an ambience rather than a substance. The regulatory name is the one that has to be accurate.

The common gap

A brand name in large type and the descriptive name in small type, or absent. The second is the one with legal weight.

What to look for

A phrase that tells you the carrier oil and the nature of the extract. If neither appears, the name is doing marketing rather than description.

The ingredient list

The ordering rule

Descending order by quantity at the time of manufacture. The first item is the largest component, which in an oil is the carrier.

What it reveals

Which carrier oil was used, whether flavourings were added, and whether the extract is described specifically or vaguely.

The vague-description problem

A single entry such as extract, without specifying the plant part or the type of preparation, is technically an ingredient list and practically uninformative.

Allergen marking

Certain substances must be highlighted where present. On products carrying added aromatic compounds, this is where they appear.

🔴 The net quantity

What it states

The contents of the pack, in volume for liquids and in mass for solids. It is one of two numbers the price calculation needs.

Volume against mass

An oil declared in millilitres and a report expressed per gram require a density assumption to reconcile. The gap is small and rarely changes a ranking.

The comparison trap

A larger bottle at a higher price is almost always cheaper per milligram. Comparing headline prices across pack sizes tells you nothing.

What to do with it

Multiply net volume by the declared percentage by ten to get total milligrams. That figure divided into the price is the only number that ranks offers.

🔴 The batch identifier

Why it exists

Food law requires that operators be able to identify what they placed on the market and trace it. The batch code is the mechanism.

Its practical function

It ties the product in your hand to one laboratory report and to one production run. Without it, no certificate can be matched to anything.

Where it hides

Embossed on the base, printed on a fold, laser-etched near the durability date. It is rarely prominent.

The single most useful habit

Photograph it on arrival. It takes two seconds and it preserves the only link between the product and its documentation.

The durability date

What it declares

The point until which the producer guarantees the stated qualities under appropriate storage. It is a declaration, not a measurement.

What sets it

Mainly the stability of the carrier oil. A polyunsaturated carrier oxidises faster and warrants a shorter date than a saturated one.

How to use it

Compare it against the date of the analytical report. A wide gap between them is an interval nobody has measured.

What a short date is not

Not a defect. On a carrier prone to oxidation it is the honest figure, and a long date on the same carrier would be the questionable one.

Storage conditions

When they are required

Where the product needs particular conditions to keep its stated qualities. In practice most producers in this category state them regardless.

What they usually say

Cool, dry, away from light. Three conditions that address oxidation and are worth following whatever the label says.

After opening

Some labels add a period after first opening. This is separate from the durability date and often more restrictive.

What is missing from most

Anything about the container. Transferring a product to an unsuitable vessel undoes the instruction entirely.

The declared content

The formats used

A percentage, a total in milligrams, or milligrams per millilitre. All three describe the same thing and none is inherently clearer.

The conversions

One per cent equals ten milligrams per gram. A ten-millilitre bottle at ten per cent holds roughly one thousand milligrams.

Cross-checking

Where a label gives both a percentage and a total, verify they agree. A discrepancy is a substantive problem, not a rounding issue.

The figure that flatters

A total-cannabinoid number sums several molecules and reads higher than the one you are buying. Look for the specific compound.

The business operator

What must appear

The name and address of the operator under whose name the product is marketed, established within the Union where the rules apply.

Why it is the last line of defence

It identifies the counterparty. Without it there is nobody to address a complaint to and no consumer protection worth invoking.

The importer case

Where a product originates outside the Union, an operator inside it must be identified. Its absence is a substantive gap.

The two-minute check

Search the company name. A registered entity with a traceable address behaves differently from a name that returns nothing.

What must not appear

Health claims

The EU Register of nutrition and health claims contains no authorised entry for cannabidiol to this day. Any statement of benefit falls outside what is permitted.

Medicinal presentation

Presenting a food as capable of acting on a disease moves it into a different regulatory category entirely, with consequences for its legality as sold.

Dosage instructions

A recommended amount presented to the reader is a prescription. It also functions as evidence about how the seller positions the product.

Testimonials as substitutes

Quoting a customer does not convert an unauthorised claim into a permitted one. The framework applies to the message, not to who phrased it.

The phrasings that signal a problem

Softened claims

Conditional phrasing, ellipsis, and questions that imply an answer. The framework covers implication as well as assertion.

Borrowed authority

References to studies without citation, or to research in general terms. Where a claim requires an authorisation number, no citation substitutes for one.

Invented certifications

Marks that resemble certification but name no standard and no certifying body. Look for the scheme and the body; both should be findable.

Comparative language

Claims of superiority over unnamed alternatives. These are assertions with nothing behind them, and their presence says something about the rest of the page.

What a good label looks like

Complete and boring

Every mandatory item present, plainly typeset, no crowding. Labels that meet the requirements without theatre tend to belong to producers who read the rules.

The batch prominently placed

Printed rather than embossed, near the durability date, legible without angling the bottle to catch light.

A route to the certificate

A batch lookup address or a code that resolves to the report. Uncommon, and the strongest single indicator of a serious operation.

Carrier named specifically

Not oil but the specific oil, so that stability and taste are predictable and the ingredient list means something.

The novel food question

The regulatory position

Extracts of this kind fall within the scope of rules on foods without a significant history of consumption in the Union before the reference date.

What this means in practice

Authorisation status varies and enforcement varies with it. A label cannot resolve this question by itself.

What a label can show

The operator, the composition and the origin. Those are the facts from which the rest can be investigated.

What to make of it

It is a live regulatory question rather than a settled one. A seller who discusses it accurately is demonstrating knowledge of their own market.

Comparing two labels

The method

Convert both to total milligrams, divide by price, then compare ingredient lists and durability dates. Three steps, two minutes.

What usually emerges

Wide gaps in price per milligram between products whose labels are otherwise very similar. Pack size explains most of it.

What to check next

The certificates. Where the labels look alike and the prices do not, the difference should be visible in the analytical panels or nowhere.

The decision

If nothing on either document explains the gap, the cheaper product is the rational choice on the evidence available.

What the label cannot tell you

Growing and processing

Nothing about cultivation, drying, extraction temperature or curing appears anywhere in the mandatory items.

Batch-to-batch consistency

A label describes a category of product. Whether successive batches resemble each other is invisible from it.

The analytical panel

Whether contaminants were screened at all, and across how many substances, appears only on the certificate.

Anything about effect

Composition is the limit of what a label can convey, and the framework confines it there deliberately.

The language requirement

What the rules say

Mandatory particulars must appear in a language easily understood by consumers in the country where the product is sold. A product shipped into a market with a label only in another language is not compliant there.

How this shows up in practice

Cross-border sellers frequently ship a single label design across the whole Union. Stickers applied over the original are the usual fix, and they sometimes obscure the batch code underneath.

Why it matters beyond formality

If the ingredient list and allergen marking are not legible to the buyer, the parts of the label that carry real information stop functioning.

What to check on arrival

That the sticker has not covered the batch code or the durability date. If it has, photograph what is visible and ask the seller for the underlying figures in writing.

Distance selling and the pre-contract information

What must be shown before ordering

Consumer protection rules require that the main characteristics, the total price, delivery arrangements and the right of withdrawal are available before the order is placed, not after.

How this relates to the label

The listing should reproduce the mandatory particulars. A page that shows a photograph of a bottle without the ingredient list or net quantity is withholding pre-contract information.

What a good listing includes

A legible image of the actual label, the full ingredient list as text, the net quantity, and a link to the batch certificate.

What a poor one substitutes

Lifestyle photography and adjectives. The absence of the mandatory particulars on a listing is a reliable signal about the rest of the operation.

The front of the pack against the back

The division of labour

The front is designed to sell and the back is designed to comply. Almost all verifiable information is on the back, in the smallest type on the package.

The mismatch to look for

A front that suggests a concentration and a back that states a different one. This happens more often than it should, usually through an extract strength quoted rather than a finished content.

The percentage question

A front-of-pack percentage should be the content of the bottle, not the concentration of the extract before dilution. The distinction is technically honest and practically misleading.

How to settle it

Convert whatever the front claims into total milligrams and check it against the back. If the two do not reconcile, the certificate decides.

Packaging and what it protects

The glass colour

Amber and green glass filter part of the light spectrum that accelerates oxidation. Clear glass looks better on a shelf and protects less.

The closure

A dropper insert that seals properly keeps air out between uses. A worn or ill-fitting one admits air every time, and the carrier oil oxidises accordingly.

The headspace

A bottle half consumed contains as much air as product. Nothing on the label addresses this, and it matters more than most of what does.

What the buyer controls

Where the bottle is kept and how often it is opened. Both outweigh the storage instruction printed on the pack.

Where labels and certificates disagree

The ordinary case

A small gap between declared and measured content is normal. Analytical variation and manufacturing tolerance both contribute.

The threshold of concern

A measured figure materially below the declared one, outside any plausible tolerance, is a different matter. It concerns an advertised characteristic.

Assembling the file

The listing as it appeared at purchase, the invoice, the packaging with its batch code, and the certificate. Four items, all easy to keep.

The request to make

Replacement or refund, citing the specific gap between the declared and measured figures. A precise request is answered differently from a general complaint.

What changes for a cosmetic

A different framework

A product applied to skin falls under cosmetics rules rather than food rules. The mandatory items are comparable but not identical, and the vocabulary differs.

The ingredient naming

Cosmetic ingredient lists use standardised international names rather than everyday ones. The same carrier oil appears under a Latin binomial, which makes the list harder to read and easier to verify.

The responsible person

Cosmetics rules require an identified responsible person established in the Union, holding a product information file. It is the equivalent of the food operator and carries comparable weight.

What does not change

The prohibition on presenting the product as acting on a condition. Crossing that line moves a cosmetic into the medicinal category, with the same consequences as for a food.

A short glossary

Net quantity

The mandatory declaration of contents, in volume or mass, from which the price calculation is built.

Batch code

The identifier tying a unit of product to a production run and to its analytical report.

Durability date

The date until which the producer guarantees the stated qualities under appropriate storage conditions.

Business operator

The entity under whose name the product is marketed, required to be identifiable on the packaging.

Carrier oil

The fat in which an extract is diluted, forming the large majority of the contents of a bottle.

The five checks that apply to any product

The batch certificate

Request it with the number printed on the packaging. A general document for the product line does not cover this batch, and those differences are exactly what it should record.

Total THC

Delta-9-THC plus THCA multiplied by 0.877, because THCA becomes THC under heat and the limit applies to the sum, not to either value alone.

Price per milligram

A division, not an opinion. The only figure that makes two products comparable, whatever the format, process and pack size.

The claims

Without an authorisation number in the EU Register these are assertions, not data — and for cannabidiol that register contains no authorised entry to this day.

The seller’s details

Company name, address and contact. Without them there is also no counterparty to turn to if something turns out to be wrong.

How this connects to the rest

With the certificate

The batch code on the label is what makes a certificate meaningful. Neither document works without the other.

With price per milligram

Net quantity and declared content are the two inputs. Both come from the label.

With storage

The carrier oil named in the ingredient list determines how quickly the product degrades and how it should be kept.

With consumer rights

Advertised characteristics that the product does not meet are a conformity matter, and the label is part of the evidence.

What this is for in practice

Before ordering

Check whether the listing shows the mandatory items at all. A page that omits the operator or the net quantity is skipping the basics.

On arrival

Photograph the batch code and the durability date. Two seconds that preserve the only verifiable link to documentation.

When comparing

Convert to milligrams first. Every other comparison is contaminated by pack size.

When something looks wrong

Keep the packaging. The batch code is what makes any complaint concrete rather than anecdotal.

Frequently asked questions

What has to appear on a label? Product name, ingredient list, net quantity, durability date, storage conditions where relevant, and an identifiable business operator.

Which field matters most? The batch code, because it is the only link between the product and a laboratory report.

Where is the batch code usually printed? On the base, on a fold, or laser-etched beside the durability date. It is rarely given prominence.

How do I convert a percentage to milligrams? Multiply the percentage by the volume in millilitres and by ten. Ten millilitres at ten per cent gives one thousand milligrams.

Why does the carrier oil matter? It is the large majority of the contents and it determines stability, taste and how long the product keeps.

What does the durability date mean? The point until which the producer guarantees the stated qualities under appropriate storage. It is a declaration, not a measurement.

Can a label state a benefit? No. The EU Register contains no authorised entry for cannabidiol, so any statement of benefit falls outside the framework.

What if there is no operator address? Then there is no identifiable counterparty, and that alone is sufficient reason not to order.

Does a total-cannabinoid figure help? It flatters the product by summing different molecules. Look for the specific compound instead.

Can the label confirm legality? No. It shows composition and identity. Regulatory status has to be investigated from those facts.

What we check and what we do not

We check what can be checked from documents: official registers, declared contents, certificates of analysis, arithmetic. We test no products, rank nothing, and assert no effects.

There is an irony in this category worth noticing. The parts of a label that the producer did not choose — because regulation fixed them — are the parts that carry all the useful information. The parts they did choose are, almost without exception, the parts that cannot be verified.

That makes the mandatory items the natural place to start. Two fields, a multiplication and a division settle the question of value; a photograph of a batch code settles the question of whether anything on the pack can be checked at all.