Shopify for D2C food: expiration dates, cold chain, subscriptions and compliance.

It depends on the type of product. Most packaged food products require a General Health Registry Number for Food Businesses and Foods (RGSEAA), managed by AESAN. Some products (supplements, novel foods, certain food supplements) require additional registrations. We'll point you in the right direction in our first meeting, but you handle the registration with AESAN yourself — we're not a regulatory consultancy, we're a digital agency specialized in food e-commerce.

We implement specific metafields on every Shopify product for: nutrition information per 100g/100ml (energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrates, sugars, protein, salt), allergen declarations (the EU's 14), ingredients in descending order, and specific claims (gluten-free, vegan, organic, etc.) under EU Regulation 432/2012 (authorized claims). The theme displays these fields automatically on the product page. Without this, you could face an AESAN penalty.

If your product requires refrigeration (4-8°C) or freezing (-18°C), we integrate fulfillment with specialized operators: Cool Logistics, Logistics for Foodies, NACEX Frío, Sending Frío. Insulated packaging (polystyrene boxes + ice packs), temperature tracking with some operators, and short delivery times (24-48h max for refrigerated goods). Not every operator offers cold shipping — choosing the right one is critical.

Yes, it complies with PSD2 and SEPA. Customers can cancel or pause their subscription at any time (mandatory in Europe). We also set up automatic reminders 3 days before each charge (which boosts retention and reduces disputes).

We set up stock management by batch with an associated expiration date. Shopify Flow (free, included in Advanced+ plans) runs automatic rules: 'if a batch is less than 30 days from expiring, apply a 15% discount'; 'if less than 15 days, apply 30%'. You sell the stock before it goes to waste. Cuts waste by up to 60%.

It depends a lot on the product (perishable or not, whether it needs refrigeration, regulatory complexity), the number of SKUs, the markets you activate, subscriptions and logistics integrations. A complete store with full compliance and subscriptions: mid-range. After the initial briefing we give you an exact quote.

We handle both. Selling food to France, Italy or Germany is possible with Shopify Markets — setting up local language, currency, OSS taxes and, critically, complying with each country's food regulations (which sometimes go beyond EU Regulation 1169 with national annexes). We'll guide you on additional regulations when we discuss target markets.

Not necessarily. You can sell as a sole trader if your volume is small and your product falls within the permitted categories. But we recommend an SL for a serious D2C food business because of: asset separation, clearer regulation, greater customer trust and better terms with logistics operators. The decision is yours and your tax advisor's — we're just raising it.

There are specific restrictions. Meta and TikTok prohibit ads with unauthorized health claims, therapeutic claims, weight-loss before/after images, etc. For standard D2C food (coffee, snacks, wine, gourmet boxes), no problem. For food supplements there are serious restrictions — we'll guide you on what's acceptable.