Nutrition facts label

The nutrition facts label (also known as the nutrition information panel, and other slight variations) is a label required on most packaged food in many countries, showing what nutrients and other ingredients (to limit and get enough of) are in the food. Labels are usually based on official nutritional rating systems. Most countries also release overall nutrition guides for general educational purposes. In some cases, the guides are based on different dietary targets for various nutrients than the labels on specific foods. Nutrition facts labels are one of many types of food labels required by regulation or applied by manufacturers. They were first introduced in the U.S. in 1994, and in the U.K. in 1996.

Australia and New Zealand Australia and New Zealand use a nutritional information panel of the following format:

Other items are included as appropriate, and the units may be varied as appropriate (e.g. substituting ml for g, or mmol for mg in the 'Sodium' row). In April 2013 the New Zealand government introduced rules around common claims made on food packaging, such as 'low in fat'. In June 2019, the Food Regulation Standing Committee (FRSC) proposed pictorial approaches to convey the amount of sugars and/or added sugar in a serving of food. An experiment showed that sugar-teaspoon labelling reduced the intention to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages.

Canada

In Canada, a standardized "Nutrition Facts" label was introduced as part of regulations passed in 2003, and became mandatory for most prepackaged food products on December 12, 2005. (Smaller businesses were given until December 12, 2007, to make the information available.) In accordance with food packaging laws in the country, all information, including the nutrition label, must be written in both English and French, the country's two official languages. The province of Québec has specific requirements in regards to bilingual packaging, most notably being that the French language must be the prominent language on product labels. Canadian regulation tightly controls the manner in which the nutrition fact table (NFT) data are laid out. There is a variety of possible formats for use on a given food package. A hierarchy is used to select among the formats (28 main formats, and 2–7 sub-formats for each). This results in standard (vertical) formats being considered for use before horizontal and linear formats. The selection hierarchy also allows the NFT to occupy no more than 15% of the physical package's available display area (ADS), but never to be smaller than a format that would be less than 15% of ADS. In practice, determining the ADS of a package, and selecting the appropriate NFT format, can be a detailed calculation. Beginning January 2026, prepackaged foods must also display a front-of-package advisory label if they contain certain amounts of saturated fats, sodium, or sugars.

China

In 2011 the Chinese Ministry of Health released the National Food Safety Standard for Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods (GB 28050-2011). The core nutrients that must be on a label are: protein, fat, carbohydrate and sodium. Energy is noted in kJ. And all values must be per 100g/100ml. The following types of food are exempt from labeling:

Fresh food, such as prepackaged raw meat/fish/egg/vegetables and eggs Alcoholic drinks, specifically those with more than 0.5% ABV Food with small packages, defined as total package surface area ≤ 100 cm2, or largest-surface area ≤ 20 cm2 Freshly made and sold food Packaged drinking water Prepackaged food with daily consumption ≤ 10 g or ≤ 10 mL Types of food exempt from labeling by other laws and regulations For example, GB7718-2011 section 4.2 exempts non-consumer-oriented food products from labeling. The standard is revised in March 2025, and start to effective since 16 March 2027. The core nutrients which newly added on a label are trans fat and sugar, and indicating that "Children and adolescents should avoid consuming excessive amounts of salt, oil, and sugar" (Chinese: 儿童青少年应避免摄入过量盐油糖).

European Union and United Kingdom

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.