How to read a food label: the EU nutrition table, ingredient list and reference intakes explained

Almost everything on a packaged-food label in the EU is there because the law puts it there. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 — the “Food Information to Consumers” (FIC) regulation — sets what must appear, in what order, and in what minimum size. Once you know which parts are mandatory and how they are defined, a label stops being marketing and becomes a comparison tool. This guide walks through it field by field.

The nutrition declaration (the table)

Since December 2016 a back-of-pack nutrition declaration has been mandatory on almost all prepacked food. It must list these seven things, in this fixed order, per 100 g or per 100 ml:

Manufacturers may voluntarily add four more rows — mono-unsaturates, polyunsaturates, polyols, starch, fibre — and any vitamins or minerals present in significant amounts. Fibre is notin the mandatory seven, which is why many labels omit it even when the product's processing level would make it relevant.

% Reference Intakes — what they are and aren't

The “%RI” figures you sometimes see — often on the front of pack — express a portion as a percentage of the reference intakes in the table above. Those benchmarks (2000 kcal, 70 g fat, 20 g saturates, 90 g sugars, 6 g salt) are fixed in EU law for an average adult. They are a common yardstick, not a personalised goal: a tall active adult and a sedentary one share the same label, and the figure says nothing about whether a nutrient is something to seek out or limit. Treat %RI as a ruler, not advice.

The ingredient list: order is information

The single most useful line on any label is the ingredient list, because EU law dictates its order: ingredients appear in descending order of weight, measured when they were added to the recipe. If sugar is the second ingredient, there is more sugar than anything listed after it. A few rules sharpen this:

• QUID percentages.An ingredient that is named in the product name, emphasised, or characterises the food must show its percentage — the “40% fruit” on a jam, the “% meat” in a sausage. A high-sounding name with a low QUID figure is a quiet tell.
• Compound ingredients get broken down. If an ingredient is itself made of several things (a sauce, a chocolate coating), its own sub-ingredients are listed in brackets — which is where additives and allergens often hide.
• Added water counts. Water added during manufacture is an ingredient and is placed by its weight in the finished product; it is only omitted when below 5% and used as a carrier.

Additives: by function, then name or E-number

Additives appear in the ingredient list by their functional classfirst (preservative, emulsifier, colour, sweetener…) followed by either the specific name or the E-number. So “emulsifier (soya lecithin)” and “emulsifier (E322)” mean the same thing. The function word tells you why it's there; the additive index explains what each E-number is and which food categories it most often appears in. Some additives also carry an allergen duty — soya lecithin keeps its soya emphasis, for instance.

Allergens: emphasised by law

The 14 EU allergens must be visually emphasised— bold, capitals or underline — every time they or their derivatives appear in the ingredient list. That emphasis is the legal layer of allergen protection, and it is the first thing to scan if you have an allergy. Precautionary “may contain” lines, by contrast, are voluntary and unstandardised. The dedicated 14-allergens guide covers the full list and its hiding places.

Front-of-pack scores and claims

Anything on the front of the pack is either a voluntary scheme or a regulated claim. Front-of-pack nutrition labels such as the Nutri-Scoreare voluntary in the EU — useful at a glance, but the back-of-pack table is the mandatory detail behind them. Words like “low fat”, “high in fibre” or “no added sugar” are regulated claimswith legal thresholds, while “natural”, “wholesome” and “artisan” mostly are not — the food-claims guide draws that line.

Use-by versus best-before

The two date phrases are not interchangeable, and EU law treats them differently. “Use by” is a safety date — used on perishable foods, and food should not be eaten after it. “Best before” is a quality date about peak condition, not safety; many foods are fine, if not at their best, after it. Confusing the two is a large, avoidable source of household food waste.

How Forkin uses the label

Forkin reads the same fields you do and turns them into something faster to act on: the nutrition declaration becomes a single Forkin Score, the ingredient list drives processing and additive analysis, your registered allergens are checked against the emphasised words, and — where available — per-country recipe variants of the same barcode are kept distinct, because the same product can be reformulated by market. Every number is traceable back to a public source on the methodology page.

A 30-second label check

• Read the per-100 g column, not the per-portion column, to compare products.
• Look at the first three ingredients — that is most of what you're buying.
• Check the QUID % on any ingredient the name brags about.
• Scan the emphasised (bold) words for your allergens before anything else.
• Treat front-of-pack words as claims to verify, and the date phrase as safety (“use by”) versus quality (“best before”).