Calculating Nutrition Information for Commercial Food Labeling

Calculating Nutrition Information for Commercial Food Labeling - Fresh fruits scattered on table near opened textbook

I'm working on starting a small home-based bakery that will ship food products sold on a website directly to consumers. (Specifically, cookies.) As part of this work, I am designing packaging and am looking into FDA-compliant nutrition labels. Even though this two-person part-time business easily qualifies for an exemption, my preference is to nonetheless provide nutrition information as I believe it would be helpful to customers. At the same time, I believe providing inaccurate information is worse than no information at all. There is an extreme amount of conversation on calorie calculation for personal diets (including here and here), but little I can find on calculation for commercial purposes.

Obviously, nutritional information can be derived through laboratory tests and I have found many such services online.

Another possible solution (that I use for my own diet) is to simply "add-up" ingredient values from their respective labels. This method seems like a great solution but I'm concerned about its accuracy on an FDA-compliant label, especially after baking. I am skeptical of this process because:

  • I recall from high school chemistry that frying an egg changes its chemical composition and I'm assuming also its nutritional value, and
  • It is commonly stated online that processed foods have altered nutrition values.

My question is in three parts:

  1. Are these concerns about the "add-up" process accurate enough to disqualify it from a commercial level of nutrition labeling?
  2. Are there other methods I can use to calculate nutrition information accurately enough to meet FDA requirements without needing laboratory analysis?
  3. Do you have any other advice on this process or topic for a small business trying to balance providing this information voluntarily and the costs of hiring outside help?

Thank you.



Best Answer

Use Wolfram Alpha, it is just adding them up. But any lab result has to use average ingredient figures too. You need to allow for variance in supply i.e protein level of flour changes with variety and season.

It produces pretty labels, all ready to go!

e.g. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100g+flour+and+100g+butter+and+50g+sugar

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How do you calculate nutrition facts for food labels?

The following is a quick guide to reading the Nutrition Facts label.
  • Step 1: Start with the Serving Size. ...
  • Step 2: Compare the Total Calories to Your Individual Needs. ...
  • Step 3: Let the Percent Daily Values Be a Guide. ...
  • Step 4: Check Out the Nutrition Terms. ...
  • Step 5: Choose Low in Saturated Fat, Added Sugars and Sodium.


  • How do I calculate nutritional information?

    Each ingredient is assigned a nutritional value based on the data collected from these sources. To calculate the nutritional information of a recipe, ingredient quantities are converted into grams and then multiplied by these predefined nutritional values (per 100 grams).

    How does the FDA calculate nutrition facts?

    The ratio is defined as:
  • (laboratory value / label value) x 100 = %
  • Class II nutrients are vitamins, minerals, protein, total carbohydrate, dietary fiber, other carbohydrate, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat, or potassium that occur naturally in a food product.


  • What is the 5% and 20% rule in nutrition?

    Though not an end-all test, a quick way to read the percent daily values is to use the 5/20 rule. This says that if the %DV is less than 5% there is a low amount of this nutrient, while if the %DV is greater than 20% there is a high amount of this nutrient.



    How to Read Nutrition Facts | Food Labels Made Easy




    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: Karolina Grabowska, George Milton, Laura James, Cats Coming