Set up your sheet: one row per label
A mail merge prints one label for each row. So if a customer ordered 3 chicken bowls, you need 3 rows. A form that gives you one row per order won't do this for you, so you copy the rows by hand on a small menu. It's the fiddliest step, so allow time for it the first week.
Give each thing on the label its own column, with a plain name at the top: customer, meal, ingredients, allergens, prepared date. Sort the rows the way you pack, usually by customer or by pickup location.
Don't type allergens onto each row. Keep a tab called Meals, with the meal name in column A, ingredients in B and allergens in C. Then, with the meal name in B2 of your label sheet, this pulls the allergens in: =VLOOKUP(B2, Meals!A:C, 3, FALSE). It works in Sheets and Excel. Use 2 in place of 3 for the ingredients. That way nobody types an allergen line by hand at midnight, and a meal name that doesn't match shows an error instead of a blank.
Run the merge
In Word with Excel: go to Mailings, then Start Mail Merge, then Labels. Pick the label vendor and product number. Choose your spreadsheet under Select Recipients, then add your fields to the first label. Choose Update Labels, then Preview Results, then Finish & Merge. Microsoft's guide has the details. Its prep page says your data needs to be on the first sheet, and to finish your edits before you connect the file.
With Google Sheets: Word isn't the only way, but Google Docs has no merge of its own for this. Label add-ons do the job, and they vary. One we looked at offered a free trial, with paid plans after, and asked for access to all your Docs and Sheets. Read the price and the permissions first.
In a browser: Avery's Design & Print Online imports .xls, .xlsx and .csv files. If an upload fails, save the file as CSV and try again.
Print one test sheet on plain paper first, and hold it up against a label sheet. It takes a minute, and it saves a pack of labels.
Pick a size that fits your container
- 2 x 4 inches, 10 to a sheet (Avery 5163). A common choice, with room for a meal name and a short ingredient list.
- 3-1/3 x 4 inches, 6 to a sheet (Avery 5164). More room for a long ingredient list, and Avery lists food labeling among its uses.
- 1-1/3 x 4 inches, 14 to a sheet (Avery 5162). Cheaper per label, and tight for anything beyond a name and a date.
The right size is the one your longest ingredient list fits on, at a size people can read. Print your wordiest meal and stick it on a real container.
Test the label in your own fridge
Plain paper labels can curl, smear and fall off in a cold, wet fridge. Stores sell waterproof, freezer-rated and dissolvable sheets, and their product pages make claims for each. Don't rely on the claim. Stick a label on a filled container, leave it in your fridge overnight, and then wipe it, freeze it or microwave it, the way your customers will. If you use an inkjet printer, watch the ink as well, because some inks run when wet.
Consider a thermal printer
A thermal printer uses no ink, and it prints one label at a time from a roll or a stack. Popular models cost about $200 to $300. Most printers like these are direct thermal, and label sellers warn that direct thermal labels fade with heat and sunlight, and do poorly in damp places. Run the same fridge test before you buy in bulk. At 15 orders a week, you may not need one at all: a sheet printer is fine until labels are taking your evening.
Decide what the label says
Federal rules for packaged food call for a name for the food, the net quantity, the ingredients in descending order by weight, and your business name and address. FDA names nine major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame.
How these rules apply to you depends on how you sell. A kitchen selling direct, a restaurant and a packaged food maker can each be treated differently, and meals with meat can fall under USDA as well as FDA. Ask your state or local health department what your label must carry. We can't answer that for your kitchen, and neither can a guide.
Be careful with macros. FDA has a small seller exemption from nutrition labeling. It covers a business selling direct to consumers with not more than $500,000 in yearly sales, or not more than $50,000 in food sales. The catch is that it applies only if the food carries no nutrition claims or other nutrition information. So printing protein and calories on a label can mean you need more on that label, not less. Ask before you print them.
Dates: a prepared date and a use-by date help your customers, and some states set their own rules on them. Decide how long your food keeps from your own process and your health department's guidance.
Make the merge hard to get wrong
A merge is only as right as the sheet behind it, and a wrong row prints a wrong label with no warning. With an allergy, that is more than an annoyance. These checks are worth keeping, even in a busy week.
- Change allergens in one place. Edit them only on the Meals tab, and lock that tab if more than one person uses the sheet.
- Print from a frozen copy. Copy the whole file at cutoff, Meals tab included, and print from that copy.
- Handle a late order change one label at a time. Fix the row in your copy, reprint that label, and throw the old one away so the two can't get mixed up.
- Treat an allergen or ingredient fix differently. Change it on the Meals tab in both files, then reprint every label for that meal, not just one. Throw away the old labels, and relabel anything already packed.
- Have a second person check. Before you pack, compare one label for each meal against the Meals tab, and check every order with an allergy by hand.
The Eat Fresh Tech way
Here's how you would print labels from your orders.
The label comes from the order. Nobody builds a sheet, so nobody can skip a row.
- The Labels Report prints by menu, by meal, for one customer or for one order. You can sort by location and customer, or by meal.
- You choose what prints. Each item on the label has its own switch. Look at these before your first print. Macros, ingredients and instructions start switched on. Allergens and dates start switched off. So turn allergens on, and decide about macros, using the note above.
- Dates count from the day you print. You set how many days before or after that day the prepared and consume-by dates fall. So if you print on Sunday for a Monday delivery, a consume-by setting of 3 prints Wednesday. Print on the same day each week, and check one label.
- Sizes: Avery 5162, Avery 5663 (2 x 4 inches, the same size as 5163) and a 4 x 2 inch Kenco roll.
Labels print through your browser's print window, so test with a sample page or two to make sure your settings work with your own printer, before doing a full run on all orders. Allergens print from what you enter on each meal, so keep that field right. The words on each label stay your call, so check them with your health department.