Ross Hampton, business director of Nutrinet, explains: "In the long-term the FSA is going to be asking anyone who makes food on the premises to label it. That's fine for the big players, with their in-house departments and nutritional teams but it's an expensive business for sandwich shops, high street bakers, cafés, restaurants and pub."

Hampton says his food analysis system is helping firms to get ahead of the FSA regulation at a reasonable price.

"If you're producing food it's very difficult to get the nutritional values for it," he says. "The information is not readily available and there are massive complicated sums involved.

"If you supply to supermarkets they are going to ask for the nutritional information. It's very costly to get a breakdown from a lab there are only about three or four in the country that do it. If you're a restaurant and you have 12 main courses on the menu that change regularly, it's almost impossible."

Hampton has created a software programme that is based on a database of 2,000 generic ingredients and can be tailored to an individual's own ingredients list.