The invention resides in utilizing a servo motor (9) to drive the label feed and employing a control system for the servo motor which is responsive to the rate of feed or speed of the surface to be labelled (2) as it is advanced to the labeller. The control system on receiving an instruct to label signal accelerates the servo motor smoothly from zero to the desired labelling speed while the surface to be labelled is advanced toward the labeller a predetermined distance and on receiving an end to labelling signal decelerates the servo motor smoothly from labelling speed to zero while the label feed is advanced a predetermined distance. The arrangement is such that upon an instruct to label signal being fed to the control system at a predetermined position of advance of the surface relative to the labeller the labeller will accelerate a label from a predetermined start position and deliver same to touch down on the surface to be labelled at the precise desired point with the label moving at the same speed as the surface and upon an end to labelling signal generated by a label feed sensor being fed to the control system the labeller will decelerate to bring the next label to be delivered to said predetermined start position in preparation for the next instruct-to-label signal.