I can offer a couple of tips.
For all of the food safety and certification you should use the FDA and only the FDA - there's a heap of bad info out there (presumably not here, but on the Internet in general) and the FDA is really the authority. It also depends on whether it's something you intend to manufacture or if you're working with a co-packer as I am.
I can tell you a LOT about the trademarking since I just went through it - first, you cannot trademark a recipe. What you can do is to have your co-packer (if you have one) or your employees/helpers (if you're the manufacturer) sign an MNDA, or Mutual NonDisclosure Agreement. That protects you from someone you trusted to work with you from absconding with your recipe. Co-packers are much less of a risk. Often these are folks who make a product themselves and are maximizing the investment in their production line, which may have cost $100,000+++. They aren't going to jeopardize their good name to poach from you, and hypothetically they'd be shooting themselves in the foot to do such a thing as it would ruin their rep and no one would want to work with them on future products, which is a big part of their business if not their core business.
What you can trademark is your product name. I am quite excited to say that after a long and somewhat costly process, TODAY in the mail I received my finalized Federal Trademark for Lucky Dog Hot Sauce.
It was not easy, and I recommend getting an attorney - first, if you have a very unique name you're probably ok and may be able to get away with less effort/cost, but you want to be careful as you don't want to encroach on anyone. For me it was difficult, as there are about 6 billion products with Lucky Dog in their name. You'll want to start by checking the US Patent & Trademark Office website - they have a free search engine that works pretty well here -->
http://www.uspto.gov/
Then you'll need to make sure you aren't encroaching on anyone else's trademark, which includes internationally. That's a bit more difficult and more expensive. But here's a tip to save you some $$$: Your intellectual property attorney will charge you for a few hours work while he has a 2nd party do the trademark search. You can bypass that expense ($400-600) by going right to them and having them conduct the search for you. I believe I paid $800 directly to Thompson Compumark for this.
http://compumark.thomson.com/
Once you're in the clear for that, and provided you meet the standards for trademark, you can proceed - but even after the period elapses (I think it's 2-3 months) where others can contest your mark successfully, you will only receive an "intent to use" mark. Which you must extend (at $250 a pop, plus attorney filing fees) every 6 months. I believe you may extend this up to 4 times (2 years) before your mark is considered abandoned. To finalize the process, you must submit evidence to the feds that shows that you have sold a product with your mark in its intended use across state lines. I had to submit receipts, links & photos. Now I have to send in another $375 for "processing fees", but that's it - I'm done. It was an 18 month process for me and cost about $2000 all told. And that's with a family friend as an attorney.
All that just for the trademark.
On to the co-packer vs manufacturing. It's a huge question to tackle - and in my humble opinion it comes down to this: what business do you want to be in, sales or manufacturing. For me it was an easy decision - I prefer creating sauces, and representing them at Farmer's markets, web sales, promotions, etc and letting someone else own the really expensive production line, labor, employee nightmares, sourcing, insurance and all associated liability that comes with those things. That also includes being liable for the label contents, accuracy, nutrition, etc. Again, that's me - I don't have the capital needed to secure a production facility and production equipment like kettles, mascerator, bottle washer, accumulation tables, bottle filler labeller, capper, caser and bundler, nor do I want the overhead of employees, workman's comp insurance, FDA inspections and certs, etc. It's a huge undertaking. The notion of starting up a romantic little business where you make and sell sauce is really kind of a fantasy - a single bottle of hot sauce doesn't pay the rent so you need to sell a lot of it. To me that means you need to focus on sales. But that's your call and depends on your capital and willingness to invest it of course. If your last name is Rockafeller, have at it (and can I borrow a couple million?)
Nutrition, as mentioned, is the responsibility of the manufacturer. There are services that test your product and analyze it to come up with the nutritional content. If you're working with a co-packer, it's on them but they may charge you. If you're making it, it's on you to submit it for testing. The manufacturer is ultimately responsible/liable for all label contents. That includes the ingredient list, nutritional content, contact info, etc.
I hope this is helpful - I've spent the last 18 months learning a lot of this stuff, so I'm happy to help if I can. If you have any other questions I'll give you the best I've got!
Good luck!
