Proposal P1062 – Defining added sugars for claims assessed changes to conditions for making voluntary nutrition content claims about added sugars in food.
The FSANZ Board approved the draft standard on 14 November 2023 and it was considered by Australian and New Zealand food ministers on 1 December 2023.
The approval report is available below.
At gazettal, the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code will be amended to incorporate the revised standard which will not permit 'no added sugar(s)' claims when a food:
- contains, or is, an 'added sugar' as defined in the Code
- does not contain 'added sugar' but contains more sugars (i.e. monosaccharides and disaccharides) than:
- 10.0 g /100 g for solid food
- 7.5 g /100 mL for liquid food.
The amended standard will:
- provide information to consumers to enable them to make informed choices in line with Australian and New Zealand dietary guideline recommendations about added sugars in food
- minimise the risk of consumers being misled about the overall healthiness of products naturally high in sugar
- provide clarity and certainty for industry and government in the implementation and enforcement of the voluntary claims permitted to be made about added sugars in food, and
- provide a transition period that allows alignment with other currently proposed labelling changes (i.e. P1058 – Nutrition labelling about added sugars).
Public consultation closed on 8 October 2023. All submissions were considered by FSANZ in its assessment and by the Board. You can find the submissions and other assessment documents below.
FSANZ hosted a public webinar for stakeholders on 21 September 2023. The presentation is available below.
Why we did this work
Dietary guidelines recommend people limit their intake of food and drinks containing added sugar.
Consumers need to be able to make informed choices about added sugar in their diet in line with these guidelines.
As part of work to help consumers make informed choices, Australian and New Zealand food ministers asked FSANZ to consider amending the Code to clarify and define added sugars for the purposes of making claims about food products.
Ministers want to ensure voluntary added sugar claims align with dietary guidelines and asked FSANZ to prioritise this work.
P1062 complements work to include added sugars information in the nutrition information panel (NIP) under Proposal P1058 –Nutrition labelling about added sugars.
Both proposals seek to enable consumers to make informed food choices in line with dietary guidelines.
FSANZ is progressing work on P1062 as a priority and has started preliminary work on consumer testing and research for P1058.
Our administrative assessment to start work on P1062 is below.
Approval
Call for submissions - now closed