Food label language requirements in Poland

Polish is mandatory on food placed on the Polish market — with an express exemption for food intended for export, and a separate Polish-language duty on food-contact materials that exporters rarely expect.

The rule, and the export exemption

Poland's requirement sits in the Ustawa o bezpieczeństwie żywności i żywienia (Act of 25 August 2006 on food safety and nutrition), read here in the consolidated text published as Dz.U. 2023 poz. 1448.

Art. 48(2) states it plainly: foods placed on the market in the territory of the Republic of Poland must be labelled in Polish. The same provision expressly permits additional languages — a multilingual pack is fine provided Polish is there.

Art. 48(3) carries the exemption: the Polish-labelling requirement does not apply to foods intended for export outside Poland. If you manufacture in Poland for another market, the Polish duty is not triggered by the manufacturing alone — it attaches to placing the food on the Polish market.

Food-contact materials need Polish too

Art. 55 extends the same logic beyond food itself: materials and articles intended to come into contact with food, placed on the market in Poland, are labelled in Polish. Other languages may be added.

This is a duty exporters routinely miss, because it sits in the food-safety act rather than in a packaging instrument. If you supply packaging, containers or utensils into Poland, the Polish-language duty reaches them.

Notification uses the Polish artwork

Art. 24 requires certain products — including those covered by Reg. 1925/2006 — to be notified to the Chief Sanitary Inspector before being placed on the market, and the notification must include a specimen of the labelling IN POLISH.

So for those categories the Polish artwork is not the last step before printing; it is an input to the notification itself.

What else Reg. 1169/2011 makes mandatory

Language is one requirement among many, and the language rule applies to ALL of them. Reg. (EU) 1169/2011 Art. 9(1) sets the mandatory particulars: the food name, the ingredient list, allergens, QUID where it applies, net quantity, the date, storage and use conditions, the responsible operator, origin where required, instructions for use, alcoholic strength above 1.2% vol, and the nutrition declaration. Every one of them has to appear in Polish.

Art. 48(2) attaches to the mandatory information as a whole, not to the product name.

Art. 13(2)-(3) sets how small they may be: an x-height of at least 1.2 mm, or 0.9 mm where the largest surface of the pack is under 80 cm². X-height is the height of a lower-case x — not the nominal point size, which is the mistake that puts a label under the floor while the artwork file says otherwise.

Allergens, QUID and the nutrition table

Art. 21(1)(b) and Annex II require every one of the 14 allergen groups to be emphasised INSIDE the ingredient list by a distinguishing typeset — a different font, style or background. The 14 include the gluten cereals, sulphites above 10 mg/kg, lupin and molluscs. An ingredient list set entirely in capitals emphasises nothing, because nothing distinguishes the allergen from the rest.

Art. 22(1) requires the QUID percentage whenever an ingredient appears in the food's name, is emphasised in words or pictures, or characterises the food.

Arts 30(1), 32(2) and 34(1)-(2) with Annex XV require the full nutrition declaration — energy plus fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt — per 100 g or 100 ml, in the Annex XV order, tabular where space permits and linear where it does not.

Dates, the operator and net quantity

Art. 24 and Annex X set the date form, and the two are not interchangeable. “Best before” (with the day shown) or “Best before end” (month and year) is quality dating; “Use by” is safety dating, and after that date the food is deemed unsafe. Using one where the other belongs carries different legal consequences.

Art. 8(1) and Art. 9(1)(h) require the responsible operator's NAME AND ADDRESS — the operator under whose name the food is marketed, or the importer where that operator is not established in the market. A website, an e-mail address or a phone number is not an address.

Art. 23 and Annex IX set net quantity: volume in l, cl or ml, mass in kg or g, with drained weight where the food is glazed or packed in liquid. The ℮ mark is optional — an average-system guarantee — and where it is used it must be at least 3 mm and in the same field of vision.

Building a Polish pack

Polish across every mandatory particular, with any other languages alongside. If the product is made in Poland purely for export, Art. 48(3) means the Polish duty does not bite — but the destination market's own rule will.

LabelYog builds the Polish declaration from your recipe alongside any other language.

At a glance

• Polish present for all mandatory particulars
• Additional languages permitted alongside (Art. 48(2))
• Export-only production: Polish duty not triggered (Art. 48(3))
• Food-CONTACT materials placed on the Polish market also need Polish (Art. 55)
• Notified products: specimen labelling in Polish (Art. 24)
• All Art. 9(1) particulars present, x-height >= 1.2 mm (0.9 mm under 80 cm2)
• Annex II allergens emphasised INSIDE the ingredient list
• Operator NAME AND POSTAL ADDRESS -- not a website or e-mail

Questions

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