We Redesigned Our Cookie Pouch. Here's What a Food Label Should Actually Tell You
Until a few weeks ago, every MOLTO pouch started life as a plain pouch and two stickers, one on the front and one on the back. It worked. It also looked, if we're honest, a little like a very good school project.
This autumn we switched to our new pouch: fully printed, matte, soft to the touch, in the cream and deep burgundy you might recognise from our stall. It's the first thing we've made that looks on the outside the way the cookies taste on the inside. And redesigning it forced us to think about a question most brands skip: what is a cookie packet actually for?
Our answer: it should tell you the truth, quickly. So here's what changed, and a 60-second guide to reading any food label in the UK, using ours as the example.
Why we redesigned the MOLTO pouch
Three reasons, roughly in order of how much they kept us up at night.
Stickers peel. Printed pouches don't.
Two stickers per pouch meant two chances for something to go slightly wonky. A printed pouch puts the brand, the ingredients and the legal information exactly where they belong, every single time.
We sell in rooms where first impressions matter
A lot of MOLTO is sold in person: at pop-ups, in private members' clubs, at the odd film night. People pick the pouch up before they taste anything. It needed to feel like something you'd bring to a dinner party, not something that fell out of a lunchbox.
The back of the pack is our favourite side
Most brands design the front and treat the back as legal homework. We do the opposite. Our whole point is that the ingredient list is the best thing about the cookie, so the new design gives it room to breathe.
How to read a food label in the UK (the 60-second version)
You don't need a nutrition degree. You just need to know where to look.
- Read the ingredients list before the front. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight, so whatever comes first is what you're mostly eating.
- Look for the percentages. If an ingredient is in the product's name or shown on the pack, the label has to tell you how much of it there is.
- Check the bold words. The 14 major allergens have to be emphasised in the ingredients list, usually in bold.
- Know your dates. “Best before” is about quality. “Use by” is about safety.
- Treat front-of-pack claims as a starting point. Some, like “high in fibre”, have legal thresholds behind them. Others are just vibes.
Ingredients in order of weight
On a MOLTO pouch, dark chocolate comes first, then dates, then almonds. That isn't a design choice, it's the law, and it happens to be exactly the order we'd want you to see. If the first two ingredients on a “chocolate” cookie are wheat flour and sugar, you've learned something too.
The percentages (QUID)
Those little numbers in brackets are called QUID, short for Quantitative Ingredients Declaration. Ours show dark chocolate at 16%, dates at 13%, almonds at 12% and miso paste at 2%. Yes, miso. It does for chocolate what a pinch of salt does for caramel, and we wrote a whole piece about why it's in there.
Allergens in bold
Our cookies contain almonds, oats, milk, egg and soya (the soya lives in the miso). On the pouch they're emphasised in the ingredients list, so you can scan for them in seconds instead of squinting through every line.
Best before vs use by
Our pouch carries a best before date. That tells you when the cookies are at their best, not the moment they stop being safe. “Use by” dates, the ones you'll find on fresh meat and some dairy, are the safety ones, and food shouldn't be eaten after them. Our honest advice for MOLTO: don't wait for either. Three cookies were never meant to hang around.
Claims with rules attached
Our pouch says “No refined sugar” and “No preservatives”, which tell you what isn't in there. “High in fibre” is different: in the UK a food needs at least 6g of fibre per 100g to say it, and ours comes in at 6.9g. As a rule of thumb, if a claim on any pack sounds specific, there's usually a rule behind it. If it sounds fuzzy (“wholesome”, “natural goodness”), there usually isn't.
What's the little sachet inside the pouch?
Every MOLTO pouch has a small sachet tucked inside. It's an oxygen absorber, not a seasoning packet, and it is very much not for eating.
An oxygen absorber is a small sachet, usually containing iron powder, that soaks up the oxygen left inside a sealed pack. Less oxygen means the butter and chocolate keep tasting the way they should for longer, without adding preservatives to the recipe. When you open the pouch, take it out and bin it.
The part we'd rather be upfront about
The new pouch has a thin aluminium layer inside. It's what keeps oxygen and moisture out and the cookies soft. It is not microwave safe, so if you prefer to warm up your cookie, make sure you do so in a plate.
Where the new pouch made its debut
The new pouch had its first proper outing at our pop-up at MAD, the Lagree studio on Westbourne Grove, on Saturday 3 October. The Tuesday before, we'd taken the last of the original pouches to the very same studio, which felt like a fitting handover. Here's how those two days went.
The pouch is new. The ritual isn't.
Same soft-baked dark chocolate chip cookie, same way to eat it: 20 to 25 seconds in the microwave, a scoop of ice cream on top, ideally on a sofa. If you need help with the ice cream part, we have opinions.
Three cookies per pouch, made by hand in small batches in London, delivered by Royal Mail Tracked 24, and delivery is free from four pouches. Order the new pouch here, and turn it over before you open it. That's the best side.