Are you curious about how a company knows which nutritional values to put on their food label?
Perhaps you have your own brand and are wondering about the best option to use?
The team at SNI can help in a couple of ways, and we will show some advantages to both solutions below.
There are two main ways that a company can generate accurate nutrient values for their food product label – directly or indirectly.
1. Direct approach
Measure the nutrient levels in the food or ingredient of interest directly, by product sampling and laboratory analysis. This provides the nutrient data on the final product, after all ingredients are combined and after all processing.
This approach is the most accurate.
We can test for the mandatory nutrients as well as additional voluntary nutrients such as B vitamins, minerals, and other parameters like caffeine content.
2. Indirect approach
Determine the nutrient values indirectly, by using information obtained from other sources such as the supplier’s ingredient information, and general database nutrient values for some generic or commodity ingredients.
This approach can be less accurate because it is difficult to assess whether the data is precise, it may be outdated, already rounded (limits precision), and it can be difficult to account for the effects of processing.
Using ingredient specification sheets to calculate a final nutrient content is usually more cost effective, and it is recommended in the early stages of product development. It is not always recommended for final nutrition labelling unless you trust the information available on your ingredients and can account for the effects of processing.
There’s also an option to mix both laboratory and software analysis to generate accurate results while also keeping costs to a minimum.
If you have one base formula, plus multiple flavour additions, our team may recommend lab analysis of the base formula, then software analysis to account for additional flavour ingredients.
Our regulatory team can help with either option – lab testing or software analysis, and our Creative Services team provides the final table as mechanical artwork that can be easily applied to any label.
