The Nutrient Gap

Oh, what a year we’ve had at The Nutrient Gap!

Like many businesses that started up during lockdown, it took a while for us to really get going. Those early days were hard. Nobody was launching new products but we dug deep and kept the faith. I’m happy to say The Nutrient Gap is now going from strength to strength.

Highlights of the year include:
· lots of lovely new customers and excellent new products,
· the launch of our small business support retainer packages,
· lots of great learnings,
· wonderful collaborations with other small businesses,
· winner of the ‘Services Business of the Year’ Category - Wellingborough and East Northants Chamber of Commerce Business Awards 2023

Businesses large and small are coming to us for the support they need to keep their products on the shelf and themselves out of court.
We care about our clients but we also strive to keep their customers safe and properly informed.

Legal compliance in the food and drink arena is a constantly changing field and we keep on top of the requirements, taking the headaches away from our clients. We keep you honest and compliant and help you to sleep at night, knowing that your products are in line with all the required laws.

And one of the best things about being self-employed is, we can take a nice long holiday over Christmas and the New Year. 🎅 🎄 🤶

So, a great big THANK YOU to clients, collaborators, suppliers, associates and friends. You all make it a joy for us to be The Nutrient Gap, and we look forward to 2024 with high expectations and enormous enthusiasm. 👏

Thrilled to bits......
Over the moon. 🌛
Utterly chuffed.
Yay! Double Yay!
The Nutrient Gap was shortlisted for the ‘Services Business of the Year’ at this morning’s Wellingborough & East Northants Chamber of Commerce – 2023 Business Awards.
And The Nutrient Gap was a WINNER! 🏆

Whilst the breakfast awards format meant our founder, Georgina Stewart MRSPH didn’t have the chance to get her ‘glitter on’, it was well worth the early start to meet up with other local nominees for the awards event. And, winning was the cherry on the vegan cupcake for Georgina.

As her business, The Nutrient Gap, goes from strength the strength, this award was fantastic recognition for the support she gives to food businesses – locally, nationally, and even internationally – who come to her for regulatory and labelling advice.

What makes Georgina unique? She’s both a knowledgeable food law boffin AND a lovely, kind, supportive person who becomes completely invested in the success of her customers’ products.

If you are a small or mid-sized food company, a start-up with a head full of confusion and questions, or a more established business in need of a bit of extra help, The Nutrient Gap is here to help with labelling, product claims, and wider food law issues.

Thankyou to Wine Chateau - Moldova Wines for sponsoring the category

Our June Newsletter is ready to view. Check out the latest legislation updates, news and views

Newsletter – 05 Jun 11:39 AM -Legislation Updates, News and Views - Legislation Updates -What's New Over the last couple of years, the legislation around HFSS products (High F...

We love working with Fushions Foods - A snack bar manufacturer in Hampshire.

The team say we take away their legislative worries so they can focus on developing great products (for some very well known brands)....
....And our service is top-notch, reliable, knowledgeable and efficient! 😇

Fushions Foods are a BRCGS Certified, Organically Certified, gluten free and vegan/vegetarian approved. 🍅 🥕

If you are thinking about developing a new product in this sector; either with your own recipe or looking to have something developed for you, it really is worth contacting Fushions Foods.......
..... because creating new and innovative products is at the heart of what they love to do... ❤️

Check them out : https://www.fusionsfoods.co.uk/

👍 We are a small local agency for food and drink legislation and regulatory compliance

✅ We work with food and drink businesses including manufacturers, retailers and food service operators. Mostly these are SMEs and challenger brands.

👍 We also support companies with food supplements, baby food and pet food.🐴🐻🐰🐹🐭🐶

✅ We help people to navigate the complexities of UK and European food law, leaving them to focus on making and selling great products whilst I work on the legal issues.

👍 We handle topics like health claims, nutritional analysis, allergens, ingredient lists, pack copy, label checks and menus.

✅ We help you to keep your products legal so they stay on the shelf and you stay out of court.👀

https://thenutrientgap.com/our-services

Are you looking for a Food Safety System with a HACCP builder?

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Oh I do love my job... Especially when I get samples sent to me. 😋
The lovely team sent me samples of their tea and coffee for helping them on some legislation queries around blending, naming and health claims.

Did you know .....❔ ❔ ❔

⏩ Depending on the processing steps employed, common denominations of tea are for example “Black Tea”, “Oolong Tea”, “Green Tea” or “White Tea”.

⏩ Geographical indications are only used if the tea originates exclusively from a particular district of origin. For example a tea might be labelled as “Chinese Green Tea”.

⏩ An example of a protected geographical indication is “Darjeeling Tea”.

⏩ If the term “blend” is mentioned in the denomination it indicates that the tea comes from different origins.

⏩ Well known blends of black tea are “English Breakfast” and the “East Frisian Blend”.

Why not pop over to their online shop. Blend and Brew are a family owned company, supplying an extensive range of good old fashioned British teas and coffees throughout the UK and Europe.
They also do an amazing range of complimentary tea & coffee equipment.
https://www.blends2brews.uk/index.html

I get a lot of phone calls from people who just want a quick bit of advice.

That's fine 😊

If you need advice - I am happy to help and be my normal geeky self and bore you with all the details you need in terms of 😜

BUT
There comes a time when I need to charge for this kind of support. With a lot of procrastinating, I eventually came up with an......

👏 💥 Annual Advice Subscription Support Package 👏 💥
.....which will help potential clients and to better budget for those OMG moments, when you don't know where to turn and you don't have time to call five different businesses trying to find one that can advise you. 😩
Pay once and then know that you can call, mail or zoom using your prepaid hours.
We'll be there when you've got a quick question that needs answering. Pay your subscription at the start of the 12 month period, knowing you can call when you need us for up to 1 hour per quarter.

☎ Pick up the phone, we'll charge you for the call time and any follow up work and for sending you emailed answers.
Or send in your enquiry by email and we'll get back to you. 📧

Contact me for further information.
Link in the comments below ⏬ ⏬ ⏬

Your Clean Label Journey ..
Consumers around the world have spoken, they are passionate about their health and the foods they feed their families. They want to know everything about the food they consume, every single ingredient and where it was sourced, why it is there and what it does and whether it harms or helps the planet. All of which had made the quest for a clean label one of the biggest trends of the decade, with the clean label ingredient market seeing an average yearly growth of 8.6%.

If you need advice or help in this market, contact us at The Nutrient Gap where we can help reformulate your recipe and suggest ways on improving your ingredients making your label cleaner.

We love it when we get lovely quotes from our clients. We really enjoyed working with Matthew on his protein bars and looking forward to seeing the finished product once launched.

Being a start-up food or drink manufacturer or a food service business is challenging. It’s not enough to have a great business or product idea, you’ve also got to keep on top of relevant food legislation.

Whether you’re selling direct to consumers, online though your own or somebody else’s website, or via retailers, there are a ton of different things to get right. And not understanding or not knowing about them isn’t an option.

We are here to help and advise and our small business retainer packages start from just £250.

Join us at Kettering Conference Centre on the 8th March for the Business Exhibition!
See the full details of the day here: https://www.northants-chamber.co.uk/events/northamptonshire-business-exhibition

To book your free visitor place email [email protected] or call the Chamber Team on 01604 490490

How often have you heard people joke “I’m allergic to hard work” or claim that something “gets up my nose”? The language of allergy, irritation and avoidance is all around us and it can feel like everybody claims to have an allergy to something these days. If it’s not hay fever or pet hair or paracetamol, we’re itching, sneezing or dabbing our watery eyes about one or another environmental irritant or contemplating that something we ate made us feel a bit ‘off’. In reality, many allergies are over-reported and the impact of severe allergies is poorly understood.

Whilst the government can’t do too much to prevent you coming across bees or snakes or pollen, they can legislate to help those who have food allergies.

Read our blog to find out more

Food Allergens and your Food Business How often have you heard people joke “I’m allergic to hard work” or claim that something “gets up my nose”? The language of allergy, irritation and avoidance is all around us and it can feel like everybody claims to have...

If you’re a restaurant thinking about smart-sizing your menu to avoid waste, we can help you to make a shorter menu even more appealing by providing you with all the nutritional, allergen, and ingredient information your diners could need.

There’s something very reassuring about a shorter menu if it’s packed with really great dishes. A recent trend prediction by the UK food and drink industry newsletter, Big Hospitality suggests that restaurants facing soaring costs will seek to protect their business by cutting back the number of menu options and consolidating on a shorter list of more successful and popular dishes. That way waste is reduced and costs are managed more effectively.

Some diners think they NEED lots of choices, perhaps because of the restrictions they have on what they can eat or want to eat. But help is at hand ...

We can also review your menu to check if there’s something there for the vegetarians, the vegans, the gluten-, nut- or dairy-avoiders as well as those looking to cut back on the calories after living on a diet of selection boxes and cheese over the Christmas holidays.

If there are fewer dishes, make sure each one packs a punch by providing the most typically asked-for information. And with fewer dishes, it will cost you a lot less to get that information than if you had a menu that looks more like an old telephone directory.

At The Nutrient Gap we know all about food law and nutrition. So why not get in touch to discuss how we can help you make the most of your menu information?

Are you a food start-up with big plans but you’re worried about what it’s going to cost you to get compliant with Food Law?

Relax.

We can help.

Designing a food label can be a daunting task for an entrepreneur bringing a new food product to market. Even after you check the boxes for nutrition, product claims, and mandatory requirements; you still have to make it work with your packaging design.

❗ Big food companies often have their own in-house legislation and compliance departments.
❗ Mid-sized companies sometimes use long-established agencies if they aren’t big enough to have their own staff.

But what do you do when you’re small? ⁉

❗ Big suppliers of legislation and compliance services can seem a bit intimidating.
❗ You don’t think you’re big enough to be important to them.
❗ Maybe they don’t get back to you quickly when you have questions.
❗ Maybe they baffle you with tech-speak.
❗ Perhaps their prices are too high and their turnaround times too long.

✔ You need a supplier like The Nutrient Gap. We know how important it is to you to get it right – whether you’ve got one product to deal with or hundreds.

✔ We take away the headaches, ensure you’re doing everything you need to, so you can relax about legislation and compliance and get on with making and selling fantastic food products.

✔ You’re not a nutritionist. You’re not an expert in food law. And with our help, you don’t need to be.

✔ We can do your calorie calculations, nutritional tables, allergen information, ingredient lists, country of origin info, and more.
✔ We can even do a ‘health check’ on your current website which includes checking your marketing copy and confirming any claims you make are legally compliant.

✔ We’re a small business too so we know how it feels to have to think of everything – even the stuff you didn’t know existed.

✔ We also know you’re possibly nervous about what it’s going to cost. 💰 Please don’t.
✔ It’s pretty tough out there at the moment and we know with every penny spent means 4 or 5 times more pennies you need to bring in to keep you afloat.

✔ We don’t have big offices and dozens of staff to support.
✔ We won’t be greedy.

Get in touch. Let’s talk about it. And be assured that even though we’re really clever about this legal stuff, we won’t make you feel like you’re stupid.

Another lovely recipe for you to try for Veganuary....

These raspberry, chocolate and almond milk muffins make the perfect sweet snack. They’re super quick and easy to make too!

https://veganuary.com/recipes/raspberry-chocolate-almond-milk-muffins/

Raspberry, Chocolate & Almond Milk Muffins A deliciously sweet snack

If you haven't yet downloaded your free e cookbook from the Veganuary website, we have given you a helping hand by selecting a superfood salad for you to try.

Who said vegan salads had to be boring? Wave goodbye to lacklustre lunches and say hello to this plant-powered superfood salad by Pizza Express.

Packed with protein, flavour and vibrant colours, this healthy salad will become one of your go-to lunches in no time!

https://veganuary.com/recipes/superfood-salad-pizza-express/

Superfood Salad A healthy plant-based lunch

With even McDonald's introducing their own plant-based burger last year, it's easier than ever to make vegan choices.

Are you taking part in Veganuary? If so, what's your motivation for doing so? How are you getting on?

For some it's for health reasons, or to lower their carbon footprint, to protect animals or simply to start the year with a challenge or a feeling of purpose.

Download a free celebrity e-cookbook along with inspiring recipes, meal plans and more
https://veganuary.com

Happy New Year !!!!!

The Nutrient Gap is really looking forward to 2023, with lots of exciting new projects commencing.

Have a great time celebrating and see you on the other side!

Wishing all our clients, suppliers and colleagues near and far.....

A Wonderful Christmas

Common Food Allergens in Alcoholic Beverages

Alcoholic beverages are made from complex mixtures of grains, chemicals, and preservatives that your body needs to break down.

If your body can’t do this well enough, you will have a reaction.

You have probably heard of SULPHITES (Sodium Metabisulphite)– a preservative added to beer and wine.

Also, filing agents can also be present which remove small particles to ‘clean’ wine. These filing agents can be made from EGG, MILK or FISH proteins.

Some whiskeys are fermented in oak (or wood from other TREE NUTS).

And what about spirits and beer? These are made with ingredients such as BARLEY, WHEAT and RYE, which also contain GLUTEN.

Make sure you check the label if you have any concerns around allergens in your next tipple or if you are out celebrating at a restaurant or bar, ask your server that all important question, so they can guide you to a drink free from allergens.

It is Christmas Party time where we can relax and be merry amongst friends and families drinking our favourite tipple - but what if you are the designated driver this year?
What do the descriptions mean on Low Alcohol- or Alcohol-Free products?

Below is a quick guide to help you determine what you may or may not be drinking....

1. Low alcohol – the drink must be 1.2% alcohol by volume (abv) or below and an indication
of its maximum abv should be included on the label.

2. Non-alcoholic – this should not be used in conjunction with a name commonly associated
with an alcoholic drink. There is an exception for non-alcoholic wine where it is derived
from unfermented grape juice and is intended exclusively for communion or sacramental
use. The labelling or advertising of these non-alcoholic wine should make it clear that it is
exclusively for such use.

3. Alcohol free – this should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has been
extracted if it contains no more than 0.05% abv, and the products should also include the
abv (or state that they contain no alcohol) on the label in order to use the descriptor.

4. De-alcoholised – this term should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has
been extracted if it contains no more than 0.5% abv and the product should also include
an indication of its alcoholic strength (or state that it contains no alcohol).

The above descriptors are used on a majority of drinks categories, although their use is restricted for wines and spirits and spirit mixers.

If you are creating or formulating a new alcohol free or low alcohol product and need further advice, contact The Nutrient Gap for a FREE 20-minute exploratory call.

Probiotic & Prebiotic Health Claims - your questions answered

(1) What does ‘probiotic’ & prebiotic mean?

The term ‘probiotic’ refers to probiotic bacteria. These are live microorganisms which may provide a health benefit in humans when consumed.

The term 'prebiotic' used to describe a food component that may provide a health benefit when eaten because of changes it may bring about to the gut bacterial flora.

(2) Are the terms ‘probiotic’ and 'prebiotic' a nutrition or health claim?

YES
Stating ‘contains probiotic’ or 'prebiotic' (or similar) on a product is not the same as saying ‘contains ingredient X’. It is more than just mentioning the product contains bacteria. It implies that the product contains a substance that may be beneficial for health. Anything that states, suggests or implies a relationship between food and health can be considered to be a health claim. For this reason, the term ‘probiotic’ and 'prebiotic' when used on a food label, is considered to be a health claim.

(3) Are there any approved health claims on probiotics and prebiotics?

NO - not currently
Applications for health claims on prebiotics have been submitted for evaluation to EFSA and to date, no application has received a positive opinion. Several prebiotic claims that have been fully evaluated and rejected are listed as non-authorised on the EU register.

If you need further advice on what Health Claims you can make on your product, please contact The Nutrient Gap for a free 20-minute exploratory call.

Yesterday was Stir Up Sunday and one of the main ingredients in a Christmas pudding is Rasins.

And like with most ingredients, there are regulations and standards attached to these little fellas 🍇

Raisins is the product prepared from the sound dried grapes of the varieties conforming to the characteristics of Vitis vinifera L. (but excluding currant types) processed in an appropriate manner into a form of marketable raisin with or without coating with suitable optional ingredients.

TYPE GROUPS

(a) Seedless - prepared from grapes that are naturally seedless or almost seedless.
(b) Seed-bearing - prepared from grapes that possess seeds, which may or may not be removed in processing.

STYLES (OR FORMS)

(a) Non-Seeded (or Unseeded) - with seeds not removed in seed-bearing types.
(b) Seeded - with seeds removed mechanically in seed-bearing types.
(c) Clusters - with main bunch stem attached.

LABELLING

In addition to the requirements of the General Standard for the Labelling of Pre-packaged Foods
the following specific provisions apply:

THE NAME OF THE FOOD

The name of the product shall be "Raisins"; or it shall be "Sultanas" in those countries where the name sultana is used to describe certain types of raisins.
(a) If the raisins are bleached, part of the name shall include a meaningful term as customarily understood and used in the country of sale, such as "Bleached", "Golden", or "Golden Bleached".
(b) If raisins are of the seed-bearing type, the name of the product shall include, as appropriate:
(i) the description "Seeded" or "With Seeds Removed".
(ii) the description "Non-Seeded", "Unseeded", "With Seeds", or similar description indicating that the raisins are naturally not seedless, except in cluster form and Malaga Muscatel type.
(c) If raisins are in cluster form, the name of the product shall include the description "Clusters", or a similar appropriate description.
(d) If raisins intentionally do not have cap-stems removed, the name of the product shall include the description "Unstemmed" or a similar appropriate description, except in cluster form and Malaga Muscatel type.
(e) Where a characteristic coating or similar treatment has been used, appropriate terms shall be included as part of the name of the product or in close proximity to the name: e.g., "Sugar Coated", "Coated with X".

OPTIONAL DECLARATIONS

(a) Raisins may be described as "Natural" when they have not been subjected to dipping in an alkaline lye and oil solution as an aid to drying nor subjected to bleach treatment.
(b) Raisins may be described as "Seedless" when they are of that type.
(c) The product name may include the variety or varietal type group of raisins.

If you need help with any legislative food labelling, please contact The Nutrient Gap for a free 20-minute exploratory call.