Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme: Labelling requirements
NI Retail Movement Scheme phase 2: Products that need individual product labels from 1 October 2024
Last updated: 9 September 2024
From 1 October 2024, in addition to the phase 1 products, all milk and dairy products moving to Northern Ireland under the Retail Movement Scheme will need to be individually labelled at product level.
Dairy products are processed products resulting from the processing of raw milk or any products produced from further processing of other dairy products. Dairy products include:
- all milk, buttermilk or cream
- whey
- butter
- butteroil
- caseins
- anhydrous milk fat (AMF)
- cheese
- yogurt
- kefir
- koumiss
- viili or fil
- smetana
- fil
- rjaženka
- rūgušpiens
- flavoured dairy products
- ice cream made solely from dairy products, stabilisers and flavourings
- UHT milk and products made from UHT milk
- thermised milk and products made from thermised milk
Phase 2 does not include composite products that contain products from this list. For example, a chilled pizza with processed cheese would come into force in phase 3.
However, it is not a composite product if a plant product adds special characteristics to a POAO, like flavour, sweetness or acts as a thickening or decorative agent. Therefore, it needs to be individually product labelled. For example, if herbs are added to cheese or fruit is added to yoghurt, or a breaded cheese such as mozzarella sticks, the products are still dairy products as the plant product only adds flavour.
Compound products which include dairy products combined with another POAO product such as dairy or fish, require labelling in phase 2. For example, fish with a separate sauce or prawns packaged with a dairy dip.