1. Overview

This policy sets the additional requirements that apply to anyone listing food or drink on Sellexa. It sits on top of the Seller Agreement, Prohibited & Restricted Items and Terms of Service. Food carries higher safety risk than other categories, so we hold food sellers to a tighter standard.

2. UK food law you must comply with

You are independently responsible for complying with UK food law. The framework you most need to know:

• Food Safety Act 1990, the umbrella offence regime for unsafe or falsely described food.
• General Food Law (retained EU Reg. 178/2002), traceability, withdrawal and recall obligations.
• Food Information to Consumers (retained EU Reg. 1169/2011), mandatory information for pre-packed food.
• The Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019 ("Natasha's Law"), full ingredient list and emphasised 14 allergens for food Pre-Packed for Direct Sale (PPDS). Equivalent regulations apply in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 (or the devolved equivalents), temperature control, cross-contamination, premises standards.

Failure to comply may result in your listings being removed, your seller account being suspended, and serious cases being reported to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), your local Environmental Health Officer (EHO), or the police.

3. FSA / local-authority registration

Every food business in the UK must be registered with the local council (Environmental Health team) at least 28 days before trading begins. Registration is free.

• You must be registered before you list food on Sellexa, including if you operate from home.
• You must provide your registering local-authority name on request, so we can verify with the public Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) database.
• If your premises score 0–2 on the FHRS we may suspend your listings until the score improves.

4. What you can sell

• Shelf-stable foods (packaged snacks, dry goods, oils, condiments, spices).
• Refrigerated or frozen foods only if you can guarantee the cold chain is maintained in transit (insulated packaging, gel packs, courier service that delivers within the safe time window).
• Pre-packed home-baked goods, where you are registered and compliant with PPDS labelling rules.
• Non-alcoholic beverages.

5. What you must not sell

• Anything past its use-by date.
• Unsafe, contaminated, mislabelled, or recalled products.
• Unlabelled food where labelling is legally required.
• Infant formula, follow-on formula, or specialist medical foods (these have separate, strict regulations and are not approved for sale on Sellexa in v1).
• Alcoholic drinks (Sellexa does not currently support age verification at checkout, see Prohibited & Restricted Items).
• Wild-foraged foods unless you can produce a certified safety assessment.
• Raw milk, raw-milk cheeses, or other foods that require a specific licence you do not hold.
• CBD or other novel foods that have not been authorised by the FSA.

6. Labelling, Natasha's Law and PPDS

Food sold on Sellexa is treated as Pre-Packed for Direct Sale (PPDS): the buyer orders before they see the physical packaging, so the listing must carry the same information that a PPDS pack would carry on the shelf. Every food listing must clearly show:

• The name of the food.
• The full ingredients list, in descending weight order.
• All 14 regulated allergens emphasised in the ingredients list (typically bold): celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, tree nuts.
• Net quantity (weight in grams or volume in millilitres).
• Storage instructions, including any "keep refrigerated" or "keep frozen" requirements.
• Use-by date (for high-risk foods) or best-before date (for lower-risk foods).
• The trading name and registered address of your food business.

Misleading descriptions, omissions, or unsubstantiated health/origin claims are strictly prohibited.

7. Food safety, packaging and delivery

• Use food-grade packaging suitable for the product type.
• Maintain temperature control end-to-end. Standard tracked delivery typically takes 2 to 3 working days. If chill or frozen safety cannot be guaranteed across that window with the insulated packaging you use, you must not list the product.
• State delivery times and storage requirements clearly in the listing.
• Prevent cross-contamination during preparation, packing and storage. If you handle any of the 14 allergens on the same premises, you must declare a "may contain" warning.

8. Complaints, incidents and recalls

If you become aware of any food safety issue, contamination, undeclared allergen, packaging failure, FSA recall affecting your supply chain, you must:

• Notify Sellexa at support@sellexa.app within 24 hours.
• Stop new sales of the affected product immediately.
• Cooperate with any investigation, including providing batch records and the registering local authority's contact details.
• Respond to affected buyers promptly through Sellexa's in-app messaging.

Sellexa may remove listings, suspend the account, and notify the FSA or local Environmental Health Officer where there is a credible risk to public health.

9. Seller responsibility

Sellexa operates a marketplace; we do not manufacture, store, or handle the food you sell. You are solely responsible for compliance with UK food law and for the safety of the products you list. Sellexa does not accept liability for food safety violations by sellers.

10. Related policies

• Seller Agreement
• Prohibited & Restricted Items
• Seller Misconduct & Enforcement
• Returns & Refunds Policy