Food labelling is an important element of the food safety standards and food legislation in Australia. Correct labelling of food helps you track the movement of food in your kitchen across the week. It's not only good practice, but it's the right thing to do for your customers.

But sometimes it’s hard to see the benefits of spending unnecessary money on labels when some masking tape and a pen or cheap texta will do the trick. Well it’s not the same as using food labels and I’ll tell you why.

Masking tape was originally made for use by tradies, panel beaters, house painters etc. The adhesive was medium grade and allowed the tape to be removed with little residue. However, the cheap everyday masking tape that most of us buy uses a stronger adhesive which makes it more tacky.

This means it will likely leave a residue on your prep containers and unless the staff diligently remove every bit of tape, you run the risk of having a clogged up dishwasher.

The sticky residue on your containers is a problem. It builds up over time and bacteria just love sticky, unclean areas. This provides them with the opportunity to breed, destroying your food safe practices. And the clogged dishwasher? Nothing but hassle.

In comparison, food labels are made with a light-weight adhesive. It's important to buy the right ones though, as some brands are too light-weight: sticking well within a small temperature range but then coming off in the cooler temperatures of the fridge.

Daymark Safety Systems have managed to overcome this with their Disolve-away Label by using a stronger adhesive that sticks when you need it to, in a temperature range of -40degrees to +80degrees. And when you don't need it to, it takes less than 30 seconds to dissolve in water, solving the other problem of clogged dishwashers. As for the cost, we sell a roll of 1,000 labels for only $12.50 (ex gst). That’s just over 1c per label, making it significantly cheaper than other dissolvable food labels!

We also have a starter kit that includes a dispenser to help reduce your initial outlay.

We’ve done some testing here at the Aussie Pizza Supplies HQ and we’re so impressed with the little buggers that we’re giving away FREE sample packs which include 3 of each of the days (21 labels in total). You can stick them to a few stainless pans, plastic containers, or even to the staff and then throw the containers in the dishwasher and voila! the stickers are gone….but if you’re anything like us, you’ll probably want to save a couple and hold them under a running tap to see what happens!

To receive your FREE sample pack, just sign up to our newsletter here and provide a postal address for mailing. We respect your privacy, so we won’t keep your postal address, share it or use it for any other reason. Go on, put them through the wringer!