Technical and operational details for the Aserta Shopify application.
Aserta acts as your automated regulatory engine. It securely connects to your Shopify store and allows you to scan your product descriptions against official regulatory databases. It automatically detects and formats (emboldens or shows warnings) the regulated food allergens, saving you hours of manual data entry while helping you avoid trading standards fines.
We currently offer specific modules for the most heavily regulated markets:
Aserta scans Shopify product description text — not physical labels, packaging, or regulator certificates. Some modules apply automatic formatting (e.g. UK allergen bolding); others flag Needs Review for your team to verify.
For food and cosmetic products, regulators care about what appears in your formal ingredient declaration — usually the labelled “Ingredients:” section — not only what you say elsewhere in the product story.
It is common for merchants to describe variants in marketing copy — for example, “with Bergamot essential oil” or “with Tea Tree essential oil” — while the ingredient list still says something vague like “essential oils”. That can still be a compliance weakness for markets such as AU/NZ cosmetics, which expect specific INCI names (not umbrella terms or marketing language) in the declared list.
What Aserta checks: Aserta primarily reviews the ingredient declaration in your product description. It may flag vague terms (e.g. “essential oils”), marketing words inside the list (e.g. “organic”), common names where INCI names are expected (e.g. “water” instead of “Aqua”), or lists that look incomplete. That is why a product can correctly show Needs Review even when the rest of the description sounds more specific.
What Aserta does not assume: We do not treat marketing copy as a substitute for a proper ingredient list. If an ingredient is mentioned only in the body text — or only implied by a variant name — it may not be treated as fully declared for audit purposes.
Variant products: On many Shopify stores, selecting a variant (e.g. Bergamot vs Tea Tree) changes the title or option label but does not change the shared product description. If each variant contains different actives, you may need separate ingredient declarations per variant or per SKU, not one vague list for all options. Aserta audits the product description Shopify provides; it cannot infer variant-specific ingredients that are not declared in that text.
What you should do as a merchant:
Example: A hair spray described as “ACV mix with Bergamot essential oil” in the sales copy, but listing only “water, organic apple cider vinegar, essential oils” under Ingredients, would reasonably attract review — the list does not name Bergamot (or Tea Tree, for the other variant) in INCI form, even though the description mentions them.
Ingredients & disclaimers
No. A line such as “Due to regulatory labelling issues, ingredients may change — check the packaging for the correct ingredients” is not a substitute for a proper ingredient declaration on your Shopify product page. It is a caution to customers, not a compliance exemption.
When someone buys online, regulators and trading standards generally expect ingredient information where the customer decides to purchase — on the product page or equivalent point-of-sale information — not only on the physical pack after delivery. That applies across the modules Aserta supports, including those not yet available:
When a disclaimer can help: If you already publish a complete, correct ingredient list on the product page, a short note that formulations may occasionally change can sit alongside that list — as a supplement, not a replacement.
When it does not help: Marketing copy or a disclaimer instead of an Ingredients: section, US Active/Inactive blocks without a full list, or partial lists plus “check the box” — the online listing still has a gap.
What Aserta does: Aserta scans formal composition sections (Ingredients:, UV Filters:, Contains:, and similar). General disclaimers in body text are not treated as ingredient declarations. A page with only a packaging disclaimer and no proper list will still show Needs Review or “no ingredient list found” — the same as if the disclaimer were not there.
UK Food & allergen emphasis
Yes. A “gluten-free” claim is about the level of gluten in the food — it is not an allergen-labelling exemption. Oats are a regulated allergen in their own right: one of the “cereals containing gluten” listed in Annex II of the Food Information Regulations (assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, “FIC”). The word oats must still be declared and emphasised (for example in bold) every time it appears in the ingredients list, even when the finished product is labelled gluten-free.
Industry and regulator guidance say this directly:
The gluten-free claim only certifies the product contains no more than 20 mg/kg of gluten (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014). It does not remove the duty to name and emphasise the allergenic cereal that is present.
Source: FSA Food allergen labelling technical guidance, para 31 (Articles 9(1)(c) & 21, Annex II).
No — and it is narrower than most people assume. A gluten-free claim addresses one thing only: the level of gluten in the food. It does not switch off any of the 14-allergen rules:
Sources: FSA technical guidance (Part 1); FSA allergen labelling for manufacturers; Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Articles 9(1)(c) & 21 and Annex II; Reg. (EU) No 828/2014.
Only if they contrast with the rest of the list. Capital letters are an accepted method of emphasis, but Article 21 requires allergens to be distinguished from the other ingredients “by means of the font, style or background colour”. If the entire list is already in capitals, the allergens do not stand out from anything — so capitalisation alone is not valid emphasis.
Tip: add an allergy-advice line such as “Allergy advice: for allergens, including cereals containing gluten, see ingredients in bold.”
Source: FSA Food allergen labelling technical guidance, paras 58–59 & 101.
AU/NZ & cross-border merchants
Needs Review does not mean your product is illegal or that you failed US rules. It means Aserta found a gap between your Shopify product page (PDP) and what AU/NZ-oriented presentation usually expects — based on the description text alone.
This is very common for cross-border merchants:
Your US compliance work and your live Shopify copy for AU/NZ customers are related but not identical. Consultants review labels; staff edit Shopify. Aserta watches the PDP so that gap does not grow quietly across your catalogue.
What common Aserta messages mean
| Aserta message (examples) | What it usually means | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| No Ingredients: section — partial composition only | Page uses UV Filters, Contains, or Active/Inactive blocks instead of a full INCI-style list | Your formulation is wrong |
| US-style Active/Inactive format | Common on US pages; AU/NZ PDPs usually use one Ingredients: list | You cannot sell in AU/NZ |
| No AUST L / ARTG on the product page | Sunscreen-like page with no listing reference visible in Shopify text | You are definitely unregistered (ARTG may be on the label only) |
| Vague or marketing terms in a list (e.g. “Vit E”) | INCI naming suggestion for the online list | Automatic compliance failure |
What to do
Aserta checks the product description on the page it can see against the modules you have activated (AU/NZ Beauty, SPF Add-on, UK Food, and so on). It does not know your internal “this SKU is US-only” rules unless that is reflected in what you publish.
If you sell into AU/NZ, the operational standard is: the Shopify text your AU/NZ customers see should match AU/NZ expectations — even when the same SKU is also sold elsewhere. If you use one global description for every market, Aserta may flag AU/NZ gaps that would be acceptable on a US storefront. That is working as designed: it surfaces market-specific PDP work, not a verdict on your whole business.
Practical options: separate descriptions per market (Shopify Markets or locations), a dedicated AU/NZ Ingredients: block in the description, or confirm with your consultant that the product is out of scope for the flagged check.
No. Needs Review means: “We could not confirm this product page meets the checks for this module from the description alone — please have someone look.”
That is different from a finding (for example a BANNED or REGULATED substance match on AU/NZ Beauty), where Aserta may also inject a safety block on the storefront. INCI quality and SPF presentation checks are advisory: they prompt review; they do not rewrite your list or declare you non-compliant.
Aserta never sees physical labels, packaging, ARTG certificates, or lab reports — only Shopify HTML. A Needs Review status often means label OK, page lagging — exactly the catalogue drift problem the app is built to catch.
UK Food vs AU/NZ Beauty: UK Food can apply allergen bolding automatically when you use Apply Compliance Updates. AU/NZ Beauty and the SPF Add-on mostly flag gaps for your team to fix on the product page — they do not confirm every label is legally perfect or rewrite US-formatted copy into INCI for you.
Partially. For BANNED or REGULATED substance findings, Aserta can inject safety blocks and tags on the storefront — similar to how other modules apply defined warnings.
INCI quality issues (missing Ingredients: section, US Active/Inactive format, vague terms) and SPF Add-on checks (missing ARTG reference on the page, and so on) are flagged as Needs Review. Your team decides how to update the Shopify description. Aserta assists with ongoing monitoring; it does not rewrite formulations or replace your regulatory consultant.
Pricing & account
UK Food (available now): $15.00 per month or $159.00 per year, billed through Shopify. Your first activated module includes a 30-day free trial — you are not charged until the trial ends. Cancel anytime by uninstalling the app or removing your module in the Aserta dashboard.
Additional regulatory modules (US FDA, EU Food, California Prop 65, AU/NZ Beauty) are shown as Coming soon in the app. Pricing for those modules will be published when each launches.
Yes. Your first activated module includes a 30-day free trial. During the trial, UK Food is fully functional — catalogue scans, allergen bolding, PDF reports, and re-audits on product edits. You will not be charged until the trial period ends. Uninstalling Aserta or removing your module cancels billing automatically.
Not at all. Aserta operates entirely in the background of your Shopify Admin panel. It updates standard product descriptions and utilises Shopify's native Metafields to store audit data. Because we don't inject heavy JavaScript into your storefront, your site speed and theme design remain 100% unaffected.
When you remove a product from Aserta, we clean it by removing all compliance content we added. Shopify notifies us that the product was updated, and since the content no longer matches the last audit, Aserta correctly flags it as needing re-auditing. Once removed from your monitored list, you can safely ignore this status — it will no longer appear in your Aserta dashboard.
You are always in control. We include a built-in "Sweep" feature on your dashboard. Clicking Sweep will neatly undo the Aserta Audit results, removing the automated bolding and clearing the compliance tags, returning your product description to its previous state.
Yes. Aserta includes a built-in label generator that creates print-ready compliance labels straight from your audited product data. This feature is provided completely free of charge with your subscription.
Should you wish to, you can cancel at any time directly from your Shopify Admin dashboard under your App Subscriptions settings. Once cancelled, Aserta will cease future renewals immediately.