Standing in a supermarket aisle, holding two packets that both claim to be “healthy”, is the moment a confident shopper turns into a confused one. Food labels in Australia are tightly regulated, but they are not always easy to read. This guide walks through what each part of the label is actually telling you, where the legal claims sit, and the four numbers our team checks every time we put something in the trolley.
What the law actually requires
Most packaged food sold in Australia has to carry a standardised label set by Food Standards Australia New Zealand. That is good news for you as a shopper, because it means the same set of numbers is on the back of every box, every pouch and every can. The official rule book lives at foodstandards.gov.au, and the front-of-pack star system is administered through the Health Star Rating scheme. Both are independent of the brands they regulate, which is why we always recommend going to them rather than a marketing site when you want to settle a question for good.
The mandatory pieces on most packages are: the name of the food, an ingredient list in descending order by weight, the nutrition information panel, country of origin, a use-by or best-before date, and an allergen statement. Everything else — the photos on the front, the “high in protein” call-outs, the colour scheme — is marketing.
The four numbers that matter most
You do not need to memorise the whole panel. We narrow our attention to four numbers, in this order:
- Energy (kJ) per 100g. Per 100g is the comparison number. Per serve is whatever the brand decided a serve looks like, and brands are creative.
- Saturated fat per 100g. Total fat tells you less than saturated fat does. A lower number here usually correlates with a healthier product.
- Sugars per 100g. This includes sugars naturally present and sugars added. For an unsweetened product (dairy, fruit) the number can be high and fine. For a snack bar or a sauce, it is the easiest place to compare brands.
- Sodium per 100g. Salt by another name. Two products in the same aisle can vary by a factor of three or four — sometimes more — on this one.
Use these in the simple test we teach friends and family: pick the lower number on saturated fat, sugar and sodium, and walk away with the better product 80% of the time. Our broader piece on nutrition tips goes deeper on what each number means for everyday eating, and the understanding information on food packaging guide covers the front-of-pack claims in detail.
How to read the ingredient list
The single most useful habit you can build is reading the ingredient list before you trust the marketing on the front. Two rules:
- Ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. If sugar (or any of its many aliases — cane sugar, glucose syrup, rice malt syrup, agave, fructose, dextrose) sits in the first three ingredients of a savoury product, that is a flag.
- Short lists are usually better than long ones. A jar of pasta sauce with five recognisable ingredients is doing less work than one with twenty-three. Long lists are not automatically bad — bread legitimately has many — but they are worth pausing on.
You will also see allergens called out in bold or in a separate “contains” statement. That is law, not courtesy, and it is reliable. If you or someone you cook for has an allergy, that line is the one to trust.
What the front-of-pack claims actually mean
The phrases on the front of the packet are the most loosely regulated part of the label. Some are meaningful, some are theatre. Our quick translations:
- “Lite” or “Light” can refer to colour, flavour or texture as well as nutrition. Check the nutrition panel — sometimes lite olive oil is just paler, not lower in fat.
- “No added sugar” does not mean no sugar. Naturally occurring sugars still count, and the product can still be high in sugars per 100g.
- “All natural” is almost meaningless in regulatory terms. Treat it as marketing, not nutrition information.
- The Health Star Rating (the front-of-pack 0.5–5 star icon) is calculated by a published government formula. It is not perfect, but a 4-star product is generally a better choice than a 1.5-star product in the same category.
Tricks brands play (and what to do about them)
Once you start looking, you see the same tricks again and again:
- Tiny serving sizes. A 600g cereal box that claims a 30g serve. The “per serve” numbers look angelic; the per 100g numbers tell the truth. We always read per 100g.
- Health halos. A muesli bar wrapped in earthy brown paper with bushland imagery is not nutritionally different from a sweet biscuit. Read the panel, not the colour palette.
- “Source of” vs “high in”. “Source of fibre” is a much lower legal threshold than “high in fibre”. The former is a polite suggestion; the latter is a real promise.
The single best counter-move is to compare two products in the same category side by side. Take both off the shelf, line up the per-100g column on each, and you will have your answer in fifteen seconds.
When to ask a professional
For specific dietary conditions — diabetes, food allergies, coeliac disease, pregnancy — the label-reading rules above will only take you so far. The right next move is to talk to an Accredited Practising Dietitian, who is qualified to translate the labels into a plan that fits your situation. Our piece on finding an Accredited Practising Dietitian covers what to expect and how to find one near you.
Final thoughts
Labels are not designed to trick you, but they are designed in part by marketers, and the front and back of the same packet can tell quite different stories. The good news is that the rules behind the labels are public, the numbers you need are always in the same place, and a fifteen-second per-100g comparison gets you 80% of the way there. Once you have the habit, you will not look at a supermarket aisle the same way again.