Key takeaways
- Most prepacked food sold in the UK must carry a nutrition declaration: energy, fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt, per 100 g or 100 ml, in that order.
- Values can be calculated from the recipe; laboratory analysis is allowed but not required.
- Per-portion figures and % reference intakes are optional extras with their own rules.
- Rounding is set by guidance, not taste: 0.4 g of fat is '<0.5 g', not '0'.
When a nutrition declaration is mandatory
A nutrition declaration has been mandatory on most prepacked food in the UK since 13 December 2016, under the retained EU Food Information to Consumers Regulation (1169/2011) as applied by the Food Information Regulations 2014. “Prepacked” means packed before sale, away from the point of sale, so that the contents cannot be altered without opening the pack — the product on a supermarket or farm-shop shelf.
The main exemptions (Annex V of the regulation) are:
- unprocessed single-ingredient products, and processed products whose only processing is maturing;
- water, salt, sweeteners, herbs, spices, tea, coffee, vinegar, yeast, chewing gum and flavourings;
- drinks above 1.2% alcohol by volume;
- food in packaging whose largest surface is less than 25 cm²;
- handcrafted food supplied directly by the producer in small quantities to the final consumer or to local retail outlets — the exemption most small producers rely on.
Two things remove the exemption. Make any nutrition or health claim and the full declaration becomes mandatory. And non-prepacked food and PPDS food do not need a nutrition declaration at all, but if you provide one voluntarily it must be in the mandatory format (energy alone, or energy plus fat, saturates, sugars and salt, are the only permitted short forms).
The mandatory order and units
The declaration is a table, or where space does not allow, a line of text, in this fixed order:
| Nutrient | Unit | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | kJ and kcal | Mandatory |
| Fat | g | Mandatory |
| of which saturates | g | Mandatory |
| of which mono-unsaturates / polyunsaturates | g | Optional |
| Carbohydrate | g | Mandatory |
| of which sugars | g | Mandatory |
| of which polyols / starch | g | Optional |
| Fibre | g | Optional |
| Protein | g | Mandatory |
| Salt | g | Mandatory |
| Vitamins and minerals | mg / µg + %NRV | Optional, if present in significant amounts |
Energy must be given in both kilojoules and kilocalories, with kJ first. Salt is salt, not sodium (salt = sodium × 2.5). The whole table must be in the same field of vision, in a font with an x-height of at least 1.2 mm (0.9 mm on small packs), and the figures are “typical values” — averages, not guarantees for every pack.
Per 100 g versus per portion
Per 100 g (or 100 ml for liquids) is the mandatory basis, because it lets shoppers compare products. Per portion or per consumption unit may be added alongside it, provided the portion is quantified on the label and the number of portions in the pack is stated. Percentage reference intakes (%RI) may be shown per 100 g, per portion or both, and whenever they appear the label must carry the statement “Reference intake of an average adult (8 400 kJ / 2 000 kcal)”. The reference intakes are fixed by the regulation: 70 g fat, 20 g saturates, 260 g carbohydrate, 90 g sugars, 50 g protein and 6 g salt.
Calculated or lab-analysed values
The declared values must be average values based on one of three sources: the manufacturer’s own analysis of the food, a calculation from the known or actual average values of the ingredients used, or a calculation from generally established and accepted data. In practice most UK producers calculate from the recipe using a database such as McCance and Widdowson’s The Composition of Foods or supplier specifications, and reserve analysis for products where processing changes the composition in ways a calculation cannot follow.
Whichever route you take, the figures must be within the tolerances in the European Commission guidance that UK enforcement follows. As a guide: fat, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and fibre are allowed roughly ±2 g below 10 g per 100 g (fat ±1.5 g), ±20% between 10 g and 40 g, and ±8 g above that; saturates ±0.8 g below 4 g and ±20% above; salt ±0.375 g below 1.25 g and ±20% above. If you make a claim, the claim’s own threshold applies as well.
Rounding
Labels show rounded figures, and the rounding is standardised so that two products with the same analysis show the same numbers. The tool applies the Commission guidance that the Food Standards Agency and Trading Standards work to:
- Energy: to the nearest 1 kJ and 1 kcal.
- Fat, carbohydrate, sugars, protein, fibre: 10 g or more to the nearest 1 g; below 10 g to the nearest 0.1 g; below 0.5 g shown as “<0.5 g”.
- Saturates, mono- and polyunsaturates: 10 g or more to 1 g; below 10 g to 0.1 g; below 0.1 g shown as “<0.1 g”.
- Salt: 1 g or more to the nearest 0.1 g; below 1 g to the nearest 0.01 g; below 0.0125 g shown as “<0.01 g”.
“0 g” is reserved for a genuine zero. A trace of fat is “<0.5 g”, not nothing.
Front-of-pack traffic lights
The red, amber and green front-of-pack panel is a voluntary scheme in the UK. It repeats energy, fat, saturates, sugars and salt per portion with colour coding against fixed thresholds, and it only makes sense once the back-of-pack declaration exists, because it is calculated from it. If you adopt it, follow the Department of Health guidance on format and thresholds exactly; a home-made version that uses different colours or cut-offs is misleading.
From the recipe, automatically
A standalone label maker is the right tool for a one-off. The moment you have twenty products and a supplier changes their mayonnaise, you need the label to follow the recipe. In Recipee every ingredient carries its nutrition per 100 g, sub-recipes roll up, cooked yields are applied, and the declaration, the ingredients list and the allergen emphasis are generated for each portion size and printed from the label builder. Change the recipe, and the label changes with it. The UK food labelling rules guide covers everything else that has to be on the pack.