The new requirements for the FDA food labels are to disclose the added sugars on the food label. The FDA definition of Added sugars are
- The definition of added sugars includes sugars that are either added during the processing of foods, or are packaged as such, and include sugars (free, mono- and disaccharides), sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices that are in excess of what would be expected from the same volume of 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice of the same type. The definition excludes fruit or vegetable juice concentrated from 100 percent fruit juice that is sold to consumers (e.g. frozen 100 percent fruit juice concentrate) as well as some sugars found in fruit and vegetable juices, jellies, jams, preserves, and fruit spreads.
- For industry and those interested in the more technical version of the definition, please consult page 897 of the Nutrition Facts Label Final Rule.
Axxya Systems Nutritionist Pro database has provided "added sugar" values for certain sugars or syrup products, like Honey, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Molasses, High Fructose Corn Syrup, syrup, dextrose, sucrose, malt sugar and more. Any recipes that use any of these types of products for the US database will see the added sugar calculated from these types of ingredients.
As the industry is able to identify more added sugar in their products Axxya Systems will continue to enhance its database and provide those values to our clients.
We recommend the following steps to calculate your added sugar values for the recipes:
- Open your recipe and go to the screen where you see all your ingredients for this recipe.
- If you have the desktop application -- The tab is called Recipe Tab and you can right click in the white space and pick nutrients and then pick Added Sugar. It will now show this nutrient on the screen and for each ingredient you can verify if the item has this nutrient. If you need to add this data you can open the ingredient and update it with this nutrient.
- If you have the Online application -- The screen is called Add Ingredient Screen and you can click on the button "Nutrient Values" and see if the ingredients have the needed info. If not close the recipe and edit the ingredients. When the ingredients are edited you can come back to the recipe and complete the recipe.
- See which ingredient meets the Added Sugar definition per FDA standards see above for their description. If it is a syrup, sugar, or other sweeteners from the US database the added sugar value is already added to those ingredients.
- If you have added your own custom sweetener to the recipe please open the ingredient from the ingredient section and add the added sugar value for your custom sweetener.
- Once you are done checking the ingredients
- If you have the desktop application -- click on the Nutrient Tab in the same recipe that you have open and scroll to find Added Sugar there and see if it is reflecting the value you need here based on your ingredients.
- If you have the Online application -- continue to the last screen of the recipe and pick Save and See Nutrient Profile and check to see if the Added Sugar reflects the value you need.
- Once the added sugar is calculated for the recipe it will show up on the label as well. Remember if you had already created the label then you must Edit and Refresh the label so the new data is pulled from the recipe. If you are unsure how to do this please let us know and we can guide further.If your recipe has no "Added Sugar" as defined by the FDA, you are able to type a 0 for this on the label. Open your label go to the Nutrient Screen and for the Added Sugar type a 0. This will then be shown on the label.
If you have any additional questions please submit a ticket and our help support team will be happy to help you.