UKFT held a member surgery on 25 February offering an opportunity to learn more about new labelling requirements for UK companies selling into the EU post-Brexit. Most requirements apply across all 27 members of the EU; others may only apply to individual countries. UK brands and retailers will need to be aware of all the various requirements. This is important whether you are selling to companies, retailers or direct to EU consumers. The requirements apply to all sales, irrespective of whether the sales channel is online or wholesale.

The session covered the EU Responsible Company (EURC), Fibre content, ‘MADE IN…’ labelling, care labelling (including use of the GINETEX symbols), Clevercare, safety labelling (including Flammability, CE/CA marking, labelling product sold via your website and the placement and attachment of label.

Members joined from large high street retailers, leading ecommerce businesses, fashion brands and textile manufacturers to ask questions on specific product lines, routes to market and circumstances.

“The presentation was really helpful & informative.“

“Thank you very much for the post-Brexit Garment Labelling Seminar. It has answered many of my questions.”

“Thank you for your very informative session today.”

“Thank you for the webinar – it was very interesting as always.”

UKFT has published a new Guide to Garment Labelling in the EU post Brexit for UK fashion and textile companies in light of the UK’s exit from the European Union, available to members. Find out more here.

UKFT members can watch the surgery back on demand – just contact us at info@ukft.org for the password.

Some of the questions and issues covered during the webinar included:

• Can fibres translations be identified by the use of a QR code for EU translations, so you only print in English?
• If you are selling products on your site in EUR, do you need to provide translations for ALL member states that use EUR?
• Can the EU responsible company label be provided on a swing ticket rather than sewn in label?
• Our new stock will have the EU address on our product, but what do we do if we are holding stock in our UK warehouse that does not have the EU address on the permanent label, but we’ll be shipping into Zalando after 16th July?
• Can you have both our brand’s UK HQ address and EU authorised address, or should you only include one address to avoid confusion?
• If a company like Global-e handles your B2C sales into Europe, would their address need to be added to the care label?
• If I send stock to Amazon FBA to be sold in the EU, which address needs to be on the product?
• Do you know how we can get an authorised representative address in Europe, that isn’t a fulfilment centre?
• Please could you advise what EU legislation sets out the requirements of and responsibilities of the Responsible Company?
• For a small company, would the EU responsible authorised address be a subsidiary that one would need to establish?
• In the case of goods priced in Euro on a website, does the composition information need to be available multi language on the website as well as on the label?
• Our online e-commerce is in English language and we sell in GBP and EUR. Please can you confirm if we should offer translation in all European languages online?
• For the EU responsible address – can we use our Dublin Licensee Office address? What is the definition of a responsible address?
• With the EU address, can it be any country in EU even if it is not sold in that particular country?
• If our brand is only sold online from our own UK website in pounds sterling to the EU. Do we have to translate all languages?
• Does the suffocation warning need to be translated into all European languages on, for example, polybags which garments are delivered in to a European warehouse, but are not delivered in to the end customer?
• If we place an EU address on products manufactured in the UK, do we now also have to include ‘made in UK’ label to avoid misleading the consumer?
• For fibre contents can this be the abbreviations? Should you also mention metalised yarns?
• As long as the EU responsible address is somewhere on the packaging, does it need to be specifically on the care label?
• What are the EU requirements for labelling organic or recycled materials in terms of fibre composition on the care label?
• EU Responsible Address – can this be any address belonging to your business, as long as they can pass information between the UK office and the EU authorities?
• If we are to sell our garments to The Outnet, shipping to their Italy fulfilment centre, will we need a EU-based authorised representative?
• Clevercare labels – are they part of the Ginetex labels and is it possible to just add it the care symbols?
• We have a partner company in the EU who are willing to be our EU representative but their legal team want to know exact obligations. Could you direct me to the relevant EU regulation?
• If you add “made in China” for example, do we need to have this in all EU translations that you sell to?