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Nutrition Facts Table Styles
There are in the world many ways to present the nutrients of food products. Some countries have set a standard (and might enforce it), other leave it to the producers. This document presents an overview of the styles.
- Energy units - can be expressed as kJ / kcal / Cal.
- Weight unit - per 100g/100ml or per serving.
- Required nutrients - the nutrients that must appear on the label.
- Order - the order in which the nutrients appear.
- Daily values - the percentage of the daily requirements per serving.
- Europe: kJ, 100g, (energy, fat, sat, carb, sug, prot, salt)
- Argentina: kcal, portion (energy, carb, prot, fat, sat, trans, chol, fiber, sodium), daily values
- Australia: kJ, 100g+serving, (energy, prot, fat, sat, carb, sug, (fibre,) sodium)
- Azerbeijan: kJ, 100g (prot, fat, carb, energy)
- Bahrain: kcal, 100g (energy, prot, fat, carb, fiber, organic acids, unsat fatty acids, chol)
- Belarus: kcal/kJ, 100g, (prot, fat, carbs, energy)
- Benin: kcal, 100g, (ener, fat, sodium, carbs, fiber, sugar, prot)
- India: kcal, 100g, (energy, protein, carb, sugar, fat) !no sodium required!
- Japan: kcal, serv, (energy, protein, fat, carb, sodium)
The following standard documents have been found for nutrition tables:
- Australia New Zealand: Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code
- Canada: Nutrition Labelling
- Chile: Decree 977, Etiquetado Nacional
- China: In chinese( Translation)
- Europe: Standard
- Hong kong: FAQ
- India: Standard
- Japan: Kyoto pref
- Mexico: NOM-051-SCFI/SSA1-2010
- United States: FDA - new
The standards compared:
| ca | cl | cn | eu | jp | in | mx | us | us-old | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cal | Cal | kJ | kJ | kcal | kJ | 3 | Cal | Cal | |
| serv | 100g | 100g | 100g | serv | 100g | 100g | serv | serv | |
| En. | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Fat | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Sat. | 3 | - | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | 3 | 3 |
| Carb. | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 7 |
| Sug. | 9 | - | 7 | 5 | - | - | - | 9 | 9 |
| Add. Sug. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 10 | - |
| Prot | 10 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 11 | 10 |
| Salt | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | - |
| Sodium | 6 | - | 8 | - | 5 | - | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Trans | 4 | - | 5 | - | - | - | - | 4 | 4 |
| Fiber | 8 | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | 8 | 8 |
| Chol | 5 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | 5 |
| Vit. A | 11 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 11 |
| Vit. C | 12 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 12 |
| Vit. D | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 12 | - |
| Ca | 13 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 13 | 13 |
| Fe | 14 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 14 | 14 |
| K | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 15 | - |
Only Canada and US have a very extended set of nutrients. India and Chile even leave out sodium, as they have defined a very small minimum set.
Products in the off-database have been checked in order to ascertain which type of nutrition table style is used in a country.
| Country | Code | Style | Source | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | af | ? | off | no products |
| Åland islands | ax | ? | off | no products |
| Albania | al | europe | off | exceptions |
| Algeria | dz | europe | off | import products |
| Am. Samoa | as | ? | off | no products |
| Andorra | ad | europe | off | import products |
| Angola | ao | ? | off | no tables |
| Anguilla | ai | ? | off | no products |
| Antarctic | aq | ? | off | no products |
| Antigua | ag | ? | off | no products |
| Argentina | ar | argentina | off | not clear |
| Armenia | am | ? | off | no tables |
| Aruba | aw | ? | off | no tables |
| Australia | au | australia | off | - |
| Austria | at | europe | off | - |
| Azerbeijan | az | ? | off | not clear imports |
| Bahrain | bh | bahrain | off | to few products |
| Bangla Desh | bd | ? | off | to few products |
| Barbados | bb | ? | off | no products |
| Belarus | by | belarus | off | to few products |
| Belgium | be | europe | off | - |
| Belize | bz | europe | off | - |
| Benin | bj | benin | off | to few products |
| Bermuda | bm | ? | off | no products |
FoodViewer should support the existence of these various nutrition table styles. There seems to be a large variety of presenting the nutrition data. There are standards set by governments and producers seem to invent their own. We will use only the official standards. There are two parts required for the app entry and display.
The app should display the nutritional info in the table style the user wants. The user could specify this in the preferences. If nothing is specified the app should use a default. The default is the style, which corresponds to the regulation of the users location. If the location has not a regulation, it defaults to the european style. Alternative the style is defined by what is found on the packaging. Unfortunately off does not allow us to set and retrieve this.
If the country is not recognised use a simple style, with KJ per 100g and energy, proteins, fat, saturatedFat, transFat, carbohydrates, sugars and sodium. (salt is EU only; cholesterol is Canada/US only).
In FoodViewer the user has the possibility to add nutrients one by one through selection in a popover. In order to expediate the entry process, the user can prepopulate the nutrition table. For this he has to select a table style in a popover. This presupposes that the user is able to recognize the table style. Maybe we can help the user with a sample image. We can also use a more simple approach by offering just two options: small and extended. The small one combines the eu version with trans fats and sodium. The extended sets all possible values (us + us old, no salt).