Nutrition facts label

The nutrition facts label (also known as the nutrition information panel, and various other slight variations) is a label required on most pre-packaged foods in North America, United Kingdom and other countries.

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.).

As is the case in the United States most foods require a Nutrition Facts Table (NFT). Since the Canadian NFT requirements were published more than 10 years after the United States, and since food science advanced in the intervening years, many of the Recommended Daily Intakes (used to calculate % Daily Value NFT values) differ in Canada. However, most of these differences affect only the vitamins and minerals in the NFT (shown toward the bottom of the Canadian NFT).

Other differences between US and Canadian Regulations have to do with tighter control of the manner in which the NFT data is laid out, as well as how the wide variety of Canadian NFT formats are selected for use on a given food package. In Canada a Selection Hierarchy is used to select among the many formats (28 main formats, and 2-7 subformats 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 larger format that would be <=15% of ADS. In practice, determining the ADS of a package, and selecting the appropriate NFT format, can be a detailed calculation.

There are many details involved in the calculation, rounding, and display of the nutrient values shown within Canadian NFTs. There are also numerous details specific to the position and orientation of NFTs on the package. These details, described in the Canadian Food and Drug Regulations, are significantly different from those described in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 and 9. Consequently, packaged food bound for both the U.S. and Canada must almost always differ in design in order to address the regulatory requirements in both jurisdictions.

Mexico
Food products sold in Mexico use the NOM-051-SCFI-1994 "Información nutrimental" product labelling standard (which is very similar to "Nutrition Facts" in the U.S.). The Official Mexican Standard, or NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana), was developed by the Mexican Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Promotion (Secretaría de Comercio y Fomento Industrial, or SCFI), now a part of the Secretary of the Economy (SECOFI). It entered into effect on January 24, 1996, and defines "General specifications for labelling foods and pre-bottled non-alcoholic beverages".

United Kingdom
In Britain the panel is most often labelled "Nutrition Information". It will always give values for a set quantity (usually 100g or 100ml as appropriate) of the product, and often also for a defined "serving". First will come the energy values, in both kilocalories and kilojoules, although the metric measurement is still little used by the general public.

Then will come a breakdown of constituent elements: usually most or all of protein, carbohydrate, starch, sugar, fat, fibre and sodium. The "fat" figure is likely to be further broken down into saturated and unsaturated fat, while the "carbohydrate" figure is likely to give a subtotal for sugars.

For most foods, there are no specific legal definitions of terms such as "low fat" or "high fibre", although spreadable fats (eg butter and margarine) do have statutory requirements for the quantity of fat they contain. However, terms such as "reduced calorie" may not be used unless they can be shown to be considerably lower in calories than the "usual" version of the product.

United States


In the U.S., the nutritional facts label lists the percentage supplied required in one day of human nutrients. In certain cases this label is not yet required by law, so a list of ingredients should be present instead. Ingredients are listed in order of most common to least common.

The label was mandated for most food products under the provisions of the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), per the recommendations of the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Food and Drug Administration. It was one of several controversial actions taken during the tenure of FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler. The law required food companies to begin using the new food label on packaged foods beginning May 8, 1994. Foods labeled before that day could use the old label.

The label begins with a standard serving measurement, calories are listed second, and then following is a break down of the constituent elements. Always listed are total fat, sodium, carbohydrates and protein; the other nutrients usually shown may be suppressed if they are zero. Usually all 15 nutrients are shown: calories, calories from fat, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugars, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron.

Products containing less than 5g of fat show amounts rounded to the nearest .5g. Amounts less than .5g are rounded to 0g. For example, if a product contains .45g of trans fat per serving, and the package contains 18 servings, the label would show 0g of trans fat, even though the product actually contains a total of 8.1g of trans fat.

Products that claim to be classified as low-fat and high-fiber must achieve uniform definitions between products of similar labels.

The nutrition facts label currently appears on more than 6.5 billion food packages. President Bill Clinton issued an award of design excellence for the nutrition facts label in 1997 to Burkey Belser in Washington, DC.

Further information

 * U.S. Food and Drug Administration - Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition : The Food Label
 * Health Canada : Nutrition Labelling
 * U.K. Food Standards Agency : Labelling
 * U.S. Food and Drug Administration - Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition : Examples of Revised Nutrition Facts Panel Listing Trans Fat
 * 21 CFR 101.9 (The actual text of the labeling regulation in the U.S.)