Food labeling for US salsa and dips

The short answer

A US retail salsa or dip jar needs a statement of identity, net quantity (usually ounces of weight or fluid ounces if it is sold by volume), ingredients in weight order, FALCPA names when they are present, Nutrition Facts in most grocery cases, and your address. “Restaurant-style” on the lid is not a restaurant exemption.

Where this shows up in a real kitchen

Tomato salsa looks allergen-free until someone folds in Worcestershire (anchovy), soy sauce, cheese, sour cream, or wheat in a thickener. Queso, ranch, and spinach-artichoke live in the same cooler and carry milk as the first allergen. Cottage-food states often ban low-acid canned salsa even when they allow cookies.

The US rule

FDA packaged food. Acidified canned salsa has process rules in addition to Part 101. FALCPA for milk in queso, soy or wheat in some sauces, fish in Worcestershire, tree nuts in a “creamy pepita” outlier. Refrigerated dips still need the same identity, quantity, ingredients and allergen names as shelf-stable jars.

How to apply it

Write the kettle formula. Tomatoes, onion, chili, salt, cilantro — often no Contains line. The moment cheddar or cream cheese goes in, milk is named. Weigh the fill. Keep “mild” and “hot” as flavor names, not as a substitute for ingredients. Confirm you are allowed to can it.

1. Confirm process and cottage-food eligibility before you print.
2. List kettle ingredients in weight order.
3. Declare milk, soy, wheat or fish only when they are in that jar.
4. Put net quantity and Nutrition Facts on grocery SKUs.

Worked example

16 oz “Roasted tomato salsa”: tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, vinegar, salt, cilantro. No Contains. Address in Tucson. A “queso blanco dip” sister SKU: milk, cheese cultures, peppers, salt — Contains: milk. Same cooler, two allergen stories.

A farmers-market pint with only a flavor sticker

“Hatch green chile” tells you the pepper. It does not tell you whether sour cream went in.

Questions