Food packaging carries a mixture of legally required information and unregulated claims, and telling them apart makes the package considerably easier to read.
The required elements
An ingredient list in descending order by weight, which is the single most informative thing on the package.
A nutrition declaration, generally per hundred grams and sometimes per portion.
Allergen information, which in most jurisdictions must be emphasised within the ingredient list.
Net quantity, a date marking, storage instructions where relevant, and the responsible business.
These are standardised and comparable, which is the point of regulating them.
The portion size loophole
Where the nutrition declaration becomes misleading without being inaccurate.
Manufacturers define their own portion sizes in many jurisdictions, subject to reasonableness.
Which allows a package that most people consume in one sitting to be declared as containing two or three portions, dividing the sugar and fat figures accordingly.
Comparing per hundred grams rather than per portion removes this entirely, and it is the comparison worth defaulting to.
Ingredient list tricks
Ordering by weight creates an incentive to split ingredients.
Where several forms of sugar are used — syrup, concentrate, dextrose, various others — each appears separately and each ranks lower than their combined weight would.
Which can push sugar down the list without reducing the amount.
Reading for the category rather than the individual name addresses this, and it requires knowing that a considerable number of ingredients are sugars under other names.
The unregulated claims
Natural has no legal definition in most jurisdictions for most products.
Artisan, traditional, farmhouse, homestyle and similar are generally not defined either.
Which means they establish only that a marketing department chose them.
Free-from claims are regulated where the substance is an allergen, and unregulated where the substance is simply undesirable in current fashion.
The regulated claims
Nutrition and health claims are controlled in most developed markets.
Terms like low fat, source of fibre and reduced sugar have defined thresholds that must be met.
Health claims linking a substance to a physiological effect must generally appear on an approved list, and getting a claim approved requires submitting evidence.
Which is why packaging language is so carefully constructed — the permitted wording is specified.
Front-of-pack schemes
Colour coding, letter grades and warning labels have been introduced in various markets with different designs.
Evaluations generally find they influence purchasing, with effect sizes varying by scheme and population.
Warning-based schemes appear to have larger effects than informational ones in the studies conducted, and they have faced stronger industry opposition, which is not coincidental.
Reformulation in response to labelling schemes has been documented, which may be the larger effect — manufacturers changing recipes to avoid a red mark affects everyone regardless of whether anyone reads the label.
Date marking
The distinction that causes enormous waste.
Use-by relates to safety and should be observed.
Best-before relates to quality, and food remains safe afterwards while potentially declining in taste or texture.
Surveys consistently find the distinction is poorly understood, and several retailers have removed best-before dates from fresh produce specifically to reduce waste.
Country of origin
Required for some categories and not others, with rules varying considerably.
Where a product is processed in one country from ingredients from another, the rules on what may be declared differ between jurisdictions and are frequently permissive.
Which means an origin claim may describe the final processing step rather than where anything was grown.
Additives and the numbering system
Where consumer anxiety and regulatory reality diverge most.
Additives permitted for food use are assessed for safety and assigned identifying numbers in several regulatory systems.
The numbers are simply identifiers. Several correspond to substances that are entirely ordinary — vitamin C, for instance, has one.
Which means the practice of avoiding anything with a number avoids some things on no rational basis and misses others that are listed by name.
Permitted lists are reviewed periodically and substances have been removed when evidence changed, which is the system working.
Organic certification
A regulated term with defined standards, unlike most claims in this area.
Standards cover pesticide and fertiliser use, animal husbandry and processing, with certification and audit.
They do not certify nutritional superiority, and the evidence on nutritional differences is mixed and generally small.
Which means the claim is about production method rather than about the product's nutritional content, and that is what the standard actually says.
Vegan and vegetarian claims
Regulation varies considerably, and in several markets these are not legally defined for food.
Certification schemes exist with their own standards, particularly regarding processing aids and cross-contamination, which the ingredient list alone does not reveal.
Allergen rules for unpackaged food
An area where regulation has tightened following deaths.
Requirements for full ingredient labelling on food packed for direct sale have been introduced in several jurisdictions.
For genuinely loose food, information must generally be available on request, which places the burden on the consumer to ask.