Just a reminder: the nutrition claim 'no added sugar' means that the food contains no additional sugar in the recipe, i.e. no mono- or disaccharides. This is stated in the Claims Regulation 1924/2006. This also precludes the addition of, for example, dates or malt syrup to make the product sweeter. Why? That would mislead consumers who rely on 'no added sugar'.

Nestlé received a complaint before the Advertising Code Committee; the packaging of Nestlé baby cereals biscuit, a type of baby porridge, reads 'no added sugars' and also neatly states 'contains only naturally occurring sugars'. Both on the front and clearly legible. The complainant objects. Because the biscuit flour and milk powder all contain sugars.

The ACC President cuts this short. Nestlé can show that no sugar has been added, even indirectly through the biscuit flour: that flour is not added for its sweetening power but for texture. Moreover, the porridge is diluted with water before use and then the baby porridge contains only 6 sugars per 100 grams (and not the 26 grams mentioned by the complainant). The President ends with a striking comment: 6.5 grams of sugar per 100 grams is a considerable amount for some. But according to the President, that is not such a high sugar content that the nutrition claim would be misleading. Green light, then, for Nestlé's baby porridge.

The question remains whether there might be some sugar level beyond which the claim 'no added sugar' must not be made at all. I don’t think so, as the legal test is more abstract: whether it is plausible that the sugary ingredient has not been 'added for sweetening purposes' and the substitute ingredient does not significantly increase the sugar content.

Ebba Hoogenraad

14 December 2022