Regulations for labelling and selling seafood | Seafish

Regulations for labelling and selling seafood

Find out how UK seafood labelling and selling regulations apply to consumer sales, loose food, and business-to-business transactions.



Labelling food for the consumer

Consumers rely on clear and accurate food labelling to make informed and safe choices. Information appears on packaging or, for loose food, on nearby labels. Additional details may be provided through sales materials, brochures, websites or invoices.   

Regulation of food labelling 

Key legislation 

The Food Safety Act 1990 makes it an offence to mislead consumers or sell food that is not as described.

To ensure clarity, food labelling laws have been developed over time to provide detailed and standardised requirements.  

Assimilated Regulation 1169/2011 is the Food Information to Consumers Regulation (FIC). It sets out the information that suppliers must provide along the supply chain.

As food information to consumers is a devolved matter, the regulation is implemented in the UK by: 

These are known as the Food Information Regulation (FIR). 

For more labelling guidance, visit our webpages below:

Method of Selling

Different rules apply depending on how you sell seafood, whether you are selling your catch to the final consumer, or packaging seafood to be sold to another business. Generally, the less businesses involved in the supply chain the less rules apply.   

For more on selling seafood, visit our guidance on teh following webpages:

[LINKS TO Registration and how to sell you catch pages]

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