A baker in a small kitchen on a Sunday afternoon boxes up a Victoria sponge finished with a fine dusting of shimmer, ready for the local farmers’ market. Before the lid goes on, there is one job left that decides whether that cake is legally sellable: Natasha’s Law cake labelling. Since October 2021, any cake made on the premises and sold prepacked has needed a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens clearly marked, and that list includes the decoration on top, not just the sponge underneath.
For bakers who use edible glitter, sugar pearls or lustre dust, this catches people out more than almost any other part of the label. A shimmer that took thirty seconds to apply can be the exact thing missing from an otherwise correct label. This guide walks through what Natasha’s Law cake labelling actually requires, how to test whether your cake counts as PPDS, and precisely how to write up glitter, additives and allergens so your labels hold up to scrutiny.
What Natasha’s Law Actually Requires
Natasha’s Law came into force following the tragic death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, and it closed a gap that had existed in prepacked food labelling for years. Before the law changed, a sandwich or cake made on site and wrapped for sale did not need a full ingredients list, only a note to ‘ask staff’ about allergens. Natasha’s Law cake labelling removed that option entirely for one specific category of food.
Under the current rules, any food that is packaged before a customer selects or orders it, and is packaged on the same premises where it will be sold, must carry a full ingredients list with the name of the food, every ingredient in descending order of weight, and the 14 legally recognised allergens emphasised within that list, typically in bold. This applies whether the cake is a whole celebration cake, a tray of traybakes, or individual cupcakes lined up in a cabinet.
Is Your Glittered Cake “PPDS” or Not? The Key Test
The single most useful question in Natasha’s Law cake labelling is this: was the cake packed before the customer chose it? This is the test that defines prepacked for direct sale rules UK-wide, and it is worth applying to every product line individually rather than assuming one answer covers the whole shop.
A few working examples make the test concrete:
A cake wrapped and shelved before opening hours: This is PPDS. The customer had no opportunity to select it unwrapped, so a full Natasha’s Law cake labelling ingredients list is required, glitter included.
A cake decorated and boxed to order after a customer asks for it: This is not PPDS, since the customer requested the item and it was made and packed in response. Allergen information must still be given verbally or in writing on request, but a full label is not mandatory.
A tiered wedding cake collected on the day, wrapped in advance for transport: This one causes genuine confusion. If it was packaged before the couple arrived to collect it, it typically falls under PPDS allergen labelling rules for cakes, so treat it as prepacked unless a food safety officer has confirmed otherwise for your specific setup.
If in doubt, the safer approach under prepacked for direct sale rules UK guidance is to label as if PPDS applies. Overlabelling carries no penalty. Underlabelling does.
How to List Edible Glitter and Its Additives on the Label
This is where most glitter-related label mistakes happen. Edible glitter is not decoration in the eyes of the label; it is an ingredient, and it must be written into the ingredients list in descending order by weight, alongside flour, sugar and butter. For listing edible glitter on food labels correctly, the glitter itself needs naming (for example ‘edible glitter (maltodextrin, colour)’), and any sub-ingredients inside it, including colourings, need declaring in brackets immediately after.
A baker who has never checked the back of their glitter tub is often surprised to learn what is actually written there. This is exactly why reading edible glitter labels for allergen information before a product ever touches a cake is such a basic but frequently skipped step. The supplier’s own label tells you what needs to migrate onto yours.
A few points to note when listing edible glitter on food labels:
Name the glitter as an ingredient, not a flourish: ‘Sparkle’ or ‘shimmer finish’ on its own does not meet Natasha’s Law cake labelling standards; the actual composition needs stating.
Bracket the sub-ingredients: Any colouring, starch, or anti-caking agent inside the glitter belongs in brackets directly after it, in the order it appears on the supplier’s own ingredients declaration.
Check every batch, not just the first order: Suppliers do occasionally reformulate. A label written a year ago may no longer match what is currently in the tub.
Declaring the 14 Allergens Correctly
The 14 allergens cake decorations must flag are the same 14 across all UK food: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide, lupin and molluscs. For a decorated cake, the two that trip bakers up most often are milk (present in most buttercream and many glitters that use lactose-based carriers) and nuts (relevant for marzipan, praline dust and some lustre finishes).
Each allergen present must be emphasised differently from the rest of the ingredients list, usually through bold text, so a customer scanning quickly can spot it without reading every word. This emphasis rule applies equally to allergens hidden inside a glitter or dust, not just the obvious ones in the sponge or filling.
E-Numbers and Colours: What Must Appear
Where a colour additive is used, whether in the sponge, the icing or the glitter, UK law requires the E-number or full chemical name to appear in the ingredients list. For bakers working with prismatic or metallic finishes, this is worth checking carefully, since some legacy glitter products still rely on additives that are being phased out under current regulation. Understanding E-numbers and clean-label compliance for edible decorations is a useful habit to build before stock runs low and a reorder gets made without a second look at the ingredients panel.
A short, recognisable ingredients list also tends to reassure customers browsing a cabinet, which is a fair reason on its own to favour suppliers who publish full, transparent panels rather than vague ‘non-toxic’ claims. Understanding why food-safe certification goes beyond “non-toxic” helps explain why a genuinely edible product will always carry a proper, checkable ingredients declaration, where a decorative-only glitter often will not.
Where Bakers Most Often Get Labels Wrong
A handful of mistakes account for most of the labelling problems inspectors flag:
Treating decoration as separate from the ingredients list: Glitter, pearls and dust are ingredients under Natasha’s Law cake labelling, not extras that sit outside the list.
Copying an old label onto a new product: A label written for a plain sponge does not automatically cover the same cake once glitter or a new filling is added.
Assuming ‘made to order’ always means no label is needed: As covered above, packaging timing decides this, not the order method.
Missing allergen emphasis inside bracketed sub-ingredients: An allergen hidden inside a glitter’s own ingredient list still needs bold emphasis on the finished cake’s label.
Working with fully labelled, certified Magic Sparkles edible glitter removes much of this guesswork, since the ingredients and allergen information are already documented and ready to copy directly onto a cake label.
Conclusion
Natasha’s Law cake labelling is not complicated once the PPDS test is applied consistently and the glitter tub is treated as an ingredient rather than a finishing touch. Get the packaging timing right, list every ingredient including decoration, bold the allergens, and check the small print on any colouring or additive. For bakers ready to simplify that last part, where to buy compliant edible glitter is a sensible next stop before the next batch goes in the oven.
FAQs
Does Natasha’s Law apply to cakes sold from home?
Yes, if the cake is packaged before a customer selects or orders it and is packed on the premises where it is sold, home bakers are held to the same Natasha’s Law cake labelling standards as any commercial kitchen.
Do I have to list edible glitter as an ingredient on a cake label?
Yes. Edible glitter counts as an ingredient and must appear in the ingredients list in descending order of weight, with any sub-ingredients such as colourings bracketed alongside it.
What counts as prepacked for direct sale (PPDS)?
A cake is PPDS when it is packaged on site before a customer has the chance to select or order it unwrapped. This is the central test behind prepacked for direct sale rules UK-wide.
How should the 14 allergens be shown on a cake label?
Each of the 14 allergens present, including any hidden inside a glitter or additive, should be emphasised, typically in bold, within the full ingredients list rather than listed separately.
Does Natasha’s Law apply to cakes made fresh to order?
Generally not in the same way. A cake made and packed only after a customer has ordered it usually falls outside PPDS rules, though allergen information must still be available on request.
