Compound ingredient labelling is the requirement under Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 to list the component ingredients of a compound ingredient in brackets immediately after its name in the ingredients list, unless the compound ingredient constitutes less than two per cent of the finished product or is defined by EU law.
In trade practice
In practice, compound ingredients appear frequently in processed food and ingredient trade: a tomato paste used in a sauce, a spice blend in a marinade, or a glucose syrup in a confectionery filling each require their sub-ingredients to be broken out if they exceed the two per cent threshold. Suppliers must obtain full ingredient declarations from their own raw-material suppliers to enable correct breakdown, and failure to do so is a common gap identified during label compliance audits. The two per cent threshold is calculated on the finished product, not on the compound ingredient itself, and must be verified at recipe level. Allergens present within a compound ingredient must always be declared regardless of the two per cent rule.
In a specification
Specifications for finished products should require suppliers to provide full ingredient declarations for all compound raw materials and to confirm that the ingredients list has been verified against the two per cent threshold at recipe level.