Most South African food label recalls do not come from an exotic failure. They come from a short list of mistakes that repeat across the industry, on products that had already passed an internal check: “fresh” on a previously frozen product, allergens declared in the wrong place, an unsubstantiated “natural” or “free-from” claim, net contents that do not match the actual fill, a date type that does not match the product’s actual risk, and a nutrition table missing after a claim was added later.
None of these are knowledge gaps. They are process gaps: labels get approved once, at launch, and are rarely re-checked when the recipe, supplier, pack size or claim changes.
What the Essentials course fixes
- What a compliant South African food label must legally contain
- How to declare allergens correctly, every time an ingredient specification changes
- A practical self-check you can apply to every SKU before print, not after a recall
4 hours, self-paced. Build the habit of checking a label properly, not just approving it.
Enrol in Essentials of Food Labelling Claims → Compare all labelling coursesFor the full list of common mistakes and how to fix each one, see ASC’s guide: the 12 most common food label mistakes in South Africa. If you suspect an existing label has one of these gaps, ASC Food Safety Consultants can review it.