i anticipate that you may assume that an importer is cognizant with his Country's labelling Requirements. They usually have a good business reason to be so.
Not always the case sadly. We've had many occasions where the importer hasn't had a clue. Nowadays we export directly and we're not the only people doing so once you work out how much margin the exporters take for no value.
The reality is for English language countries I don't think we do a bad job. We are members of Campden BRI and have done EU and US training with them. Australia and NZ we're not so hot on but can ask Campden for any specific queries. If it's retailer branded (e.g. a supermarket or wholesaler in the US or Aus) we do, to some extent, rely on them to be aware of their own laws and advise. We check the content more than we check the legislative requirements if that makes sense? I.e. the ingredients list is accurate, the nutritional is accurate, weight is correct.
If the country is not English speaking that's even more of a minefield. We do check nutritional is right where we can work it out and the weight but we have to rely on the customer, after all, legally it is their label not ours.
So we can prove the label is checked for the parts we can check when audited and while we're not FSC22000, we've never had a problem with this but it's not reasonable to expect the team to be fluent in Rumanian, Chinese, Russian etc. I did look into off site contract checking of artwork but the cost was >£100 per piece of artwork. My record for internal approval was about 40 in a day. Hmm... I really should start freelancing...
That all said I'm trying to improve our knowledge of export markets but it's a big job and one we can't be experts in when my company exports to probably 40 countries? I will settle for a reasonably effective Jack of All Trades!
