The front of a food package is advertising. The back is information. The gap between the two is where a lot of grocery spending goes, because front-of-pack language is written to suggest health benefits without necessarily claiming any.

Exact definitions vary by country, so treat the following as general guidance and check your local food standards agency for the rules that apply where you shop.

Terms that usually have a legal definition

In most regulated markets, certain nutrition claims can only be used if the food meets a specific threshold:

  • Low fat, low sugar, low salt generally require the food to fall below defined amounts per 100g or 100ml.
  • Reduced means less than a comparable product, typically by a set percentage. Note what the comparison is — reduced fat relative to a very high-fat original can still be a high-fat food.
  • No added sugar means no sugars were added during processing. It does not mean the food is low in sugar; fruit juice concentrate and naturally occurring sugars still count.
  • Source of and high in a vitamin or mineral require the food to supply defined proportions of a reference intake.
  • Wholegrain claims are usually tied to a minimum content, though the threshold varies.

These claims are meaningful precisely because they are constrained. They are still selective — a product can be legitimately "low fat" and high in sugar.

Terms that are mostly marketing

  • Natural. Loosely defined at best in most jurisdictions, and it tells you nothing about nutritional content.
  • Light or lite. Sometimes regulated as a reduction claim, sometimes referring to texture, colour or taste. Check the back.
  • Superfood. A marketing term with no nutritional definition. In some markets its use in health claims is restricted for exactly that reason.
  • Artisan, farmhouse, traditional, rustic. Descriptive language about style, not content or method.
  • Made with real fruit. True if there is any. Says nothing about how much.
  • Immune support, gut friendly, boosts energy. Where health claims are regulated, only approved wordings backed by evidence are permitted — but softer phrasing often sits just outside those rules.

Free-from labels

Gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free are important safety information for people with an allergy or intolerance and are typically regulated with testing thresholds. They are not general health indicators. A gluten-free biscuit is a biscuit, and a product labelled free from something it never contained is telling you nothing new.

The ingredients list is the honest part

Ingredients are listed by weight, heaviest first. That ordering tells you more than any front-of-pack claim. If sugar — under any of its names — appears in the first three ingredients, that is a sugary food regardless of what the front says.

Sugar appears under many names: sucrose, glucose, fructose, dextrose, maltose, syrups of various kinds, molasses, fruit juice concentrate, honey. Splitting sweeteners across several names moves each one further down the list while the total stays the same. If you see three or four sugar variants scattered through the ingredients, add them up mentally.

Use the per-100g column

The nutrition table usually gives values both per 100g and per serving. Compare products using the per-100g column, because serving sizes are chosen by the manufacturer and are not comparable between brands — and are frequently smaller than what anyone actually eats.

Check the stated serving size against the pack size too. A snack pack that contains "2.5 servings" is being presented in a flattering way.

Front-of-pack colour labels

Some countries use traffic-light colouring or summary scores on the front. These are genuinely useful for quick comparisons within a category, and they are based on the actual nutrition figures rather than marketing language. They compress a lot of nuance into a colour, but as a first filter between two similar products they work well.

A short habit

Ignore the front. Read the first three ingredients, then glance at the per-100g figures for the one or two things you care about. That takes a few seconds per product and is more informative than any amount of front-of-pack language.

And for anything relating to a specific health condition or a restricted diet, take the question to a doctor or a registered dietitian rather than to a package.