Sugar in snacks: reading the numbers right

To read the sugar figure on a snack pack properly, we ask three things. Is this sugar added, or was it already in the ingredients? Is the number given per serving or per 100 g? And is the serving on the pack the amount a person actually eats? Those three questions are enough to compare two products without being steered by the front of the pack. This piece is for product people, buyers, and anyone holding a snack and wondering what the number means.

Added sugar and sugar that was already there

The nutrition table usually shows total sugars. That figure blends two things. Naturally present sugar sits in the ingredients from the start: in cranberries, in cacao, a little in oats and rice. Added sugar is what the maker puts in for sweetness or to hold the product together: syrups, cane sugar, honey.

The line between the two is not always obvious. Dried fruit sold to manufacturers is usually infused with sugar or fruit juice concentrate so that it stays soft and less sharp. On a label, that infused sugar counts as added, even though it arrives inside an ingredient that sounds entirely natural. Some markets require added sugar on its own line. Many others show only total sugars, and the reader has to work it out from the ingredient list.

Working it out is straightforward. Read the ingredients in descending order and count the names that are sugar. Glucose syrup, rice syrup, molasses, honey, juice concentrate and maltose are all sugar. A recipe that splits its sugar across several names pushes each one further down the list, but the total does not change.

Per serving or per 100 g

The two formats answer different questions, so we use both.

• Per 100 g is for comparing one product with another. Same yardstick, regardless of pack size.
• Per serving is for knowing what you eat in one sitting. It only helps when the serving on the pack matches what people actually eat.
• For an individually wrapped bar, the serving is usually the whole bar, which is easy.
• For a jar or a large sharing pack, the serving may be a small fraction of the contents. Someone who finishes half a jar in an evening has eaten several times the figure on the label.

A familiar rule of thumb helps: about 4 g of sugar is roughly one teaspoon. Reading a figure and converting it to teaspoons makes it real for many people in a way grams do not.

Ways a label can mislead

Not every case is deliberate, but a few habits make a number look better than it is:

• Setting the serving smaller than the way people actually eat, so the per-serving figure drops.
• Writing no added sugar on the front while the recipe contains sugar-infused dried fruit or juice concentrate.
• Using the word natural as if natural meant less. Honey and rice syrup are sugar whatever their origin.
• Drawing attention to a low calorie line so that the reader skips the sugar line.

We treat spotting these as a basic skill for anyone who makes products. Professional buyers read labels the same way, and they notice quickly.

An example: the cranberry line at PLAY Nutrition

When we built the label for a PLAY Nutrition energy bar with cranberries, we went through the supplier's specification for the dried fruit. It stated plainly that the berries are infused with sugar during drying, as most dried cranberries on the market are. So the bar has added sugar from two sources: the syrup binder that holds oats and nuts together, and the sugar inside the fruit.

The discussion was short. One suggestion was a front-of-pack line saying the sweetness comes from fruit. We decided against it. The line is half true, and a careful reader would find the other half in the ingredient list. The front carries the flavour name only. The full sugar figure sits on the back, both per bar and per 100 g. An energy bar contains sugar because it is made to supply energy, and we say exactly that.

How we talk about sugar

Across the four Color of Vietnam brands we keep a few rules:

• The figure on the label is calculated from the recipe and checked against laboratory results, with no rounding in our favour.
• We never write no added sugar if any ingredient in the recipe counts as added sugar.
• We attach no health promise to the sugar figure. A bar with less sugar is a number, not a medical claim.
• When a buyer asks, we send both formats and state the serving clearly.

This is our value Speak Honestly applied to one line of a nutrition table. An accurate number lets buyers compare fairly, and it spares us from explaining ourselves later when the file reaches an inspector or a careful importer.

If you enjoy reading labels this way, our Fresher Product R&D role in Hanoi is open. If you are a buyer who needs the full ingredient list and figures for a product, get in touch and we will send them within the working day.