The EU directive 1169/2011 comes into effect on December 13, 2016. The first phase of this directive came into effect on December 13, 2014, but the second requires nutritional data, which raises the question of how to calculate the nutritional data.

The first phase of this regulation required that all ingredient labels must include allergen information within the ingredient list. Prior to this regulation, it was legally acceptable to include allergen information in a separate area of ​​your label.

The new regulations simply require allergens to be highlighted within the list of unique product ingredients, but the ingredients must also be listed in quantitative order.

Quantitative order simply means that the largest constituent ingredient should be listed first, then the second largest, and so on. The percentages of these ingredients should also be included.

There are several ways that highlighting ingredients can be achieved; Users can use bold text, underlined text, colored text, or italicized text.

There are 14 allergens that must be indicated on the label if they are present within the ingredients of the product. These include wheat or oats or any other grain containing gluten and also include milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, molluscs, to name a few.

Another aspect of the legislation was to harmonize the legibility of the text on food labels.

Historically, text could be incredibly difficult to read as manufacturers packed as much information into as small a section of the label as possible to maximize the marketing potential of the rest of the label.

The new regulations require that all text be legible with a specific height of the letter “x” in the font no less than 1.2 millimeters. In layman’s terms, that means the standard Arial or Times New Roman font should be 6.5 points and one size.

The second phase of the regulations that will go into effect in December requires nutrition facts to be supplied with all prepackaged foods so that consumers can make decisions regarding nutrition within the foods they purchase.

The law establishes that this information must be transmitted to the customer per 100 grams.

It is also possible to convey the information additionally per portion, eg a sandwich would constitute one portion so that a food producer can provide the information based on the entire sandwich. The food producer may also indicate nutritional values ​​in a serving, for example a cookie or a small piece of chocolate. But the food producer must also provide the information in a per 100g format in all cases.

How to Calculate Nutrition Facts

In order to calculate the nutritional values ​​of pre-packaged foods for sale to the public, food production companies need to know the nutritional values ​​of the constituent ingredients of their product. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate how to calculate nutrition data is to give an example; a ham and mustard sandwich.

A ham and mustard sandwich can consist of four ingredients; we will have bread, ham, mustard and margarine or butter to make a sandwich. Each of these ingredients will be incorporated along the lines of a recipe; that is, there will be a specific weight of each product to make up a standard product.

Food manufacturers must start with basic nutrition facts for each ingredient; as mentioned, the legislation requires nutrition data to be provided per 100 grams. Since all manufacturers are required to do this, most food companies should be able to get that information directly from the packaging of the products they buy or by talking to their supplier.

In our example, the food producer could tabulate the constituent ingredient data in a table. The information to be transmitted includes energy in both kilojoules and kilocalories; they must also report total fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugar, protein, and salt, all in grams.

Food manufacturers can also list monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, polyols and starch (which are carbohydrates), and fiber if they choose.

The order of the nutrients is specific and must be respected to comply with the regulations.

Once the data table per 100 grams for all ingredients is prepared, the food producer must understand the weight of each product used in the recipe to make the sandwich. In this example, the food producer would need to know the weight of two slices of bread (say 60 grams), the ham used (say 30 grams), 10 grams of mustard, 5 grams of margarine.

Once this is done, a simple calculation is applied to each of the ingredients that make it up to determine how many calories, how much fat, saturated fat, etc. is present in the recipe. The calculation will be to divide the nutritional data by 100g by 100 and then multiply that by the weight of what makes up the ingredient.

For example, if 100 g of ham is 350 calories, divided by 100 is 3.5 calories per gram. 3.5 calories per gram x 30 grams used in the recipe is 105 calories.

Once this is complete, the food manufacturer will have an accurate indication of the total nutrition facts for the ham and mustard sandwich simply by adding the values ​​of each constituent ingredient as a total for the recipe.

And this is how nutrition data is calculated using Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc.

Right now, food manufacturers across the UK face a major challenge in achieving the targets set out in the regulations and need to address them quickly if they haven’t already.