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Food Business

Food Compliance: US vs. EU vs. UK at a Glance

Selling food in one market is a regulatory challenge. Selling the same food product in the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom — as many e-commerce brands do when they scale from domestic to international — means complying with three regulatory frameworks that share similar goals but differ significantly in their implementation. Your FDA-compliant food label is not valid in the EU. Your EU food contact packaging declaration is not accepted by the FDA. And since Brexit, the UK is a separate regulatory jurisdiction with its own rules.

This guide compares the food safety, labeling, and packaging requirements across all three markets and shows how to manage multi-market food compliance without maintaining three separate compliance programs.

Not sure which food regulations apply in which market? Use the Sustalium Global Compliance Map — select Food and toggle between the US, EU, and UK to see the regulatory differences side by side.

Selling Food Online in the US: The Rules You Need

You have a recipe people love. You want to turn it into a product. Maybe it is candy, hot sauce, granola, or frozen meals. The part most first-time food entrepreneurs underestimate is not the recipe — it is everything that happens after the recipe is finalized. Commercial production, food safety regulation, packaging compliance, labeling, shelf-life testing, and distribution.

This guide walks through the end-to-end process of launching a food product in the United States, with the compliance obligations woven in at the stage where they actually apply — not as a separate document you deal with later.

On the Sustalium platform, the compliance document most first-time food entrepreneurs are missing is not the FDA registration or the food safety plan — it is the Declaration of Compliance for their packaging. They have the food safety documentation. They do not have the food contact material compliance. And when a retailer or Amazon asks for it, the gap stops the launch.

Not sure which regulations apply to your food product? Use the Sustalium Global Compliance Map — select your product category and target country, and see every regulatory framework that applies, from FDA food safety to state-level packaging rules.