An Indian nutrition panel must declare energy, protein, carbohydrate with total sugars, fat with saturated and trans fat, and sodium, per 100 g or 100 ml, with the per-serve column where a serving is declared. The numbers have to reconcile with each other — that is what gets checked first.
What has to be on it
The mandatory set, under the Labelling and Display Regulations 2020: energy value, the amounts of protein, carbohydrate (with total sugars declared separately), fat (with saturated fat and trans fat), and sodium — expressed per 100 g or per 100 ml of the food as sold.
Where the pack declares a serving size, the panel also carries the per-serve column and the number of servings. Percentage contribution to the reference value is calculated on a 2,000 kcal basis, with the reference values FSSAI publishes for each nutrient.
The arithmetic that gets checked
Four checks take under a minute and catch most of what we find:
- Energy against composition. Protein and carbohydrate at 4 kcal per gram, fat at 9 — the declared energy has to be consistent with the declared macros.
- Parts against wholes. Total sugars cannot exceed total carbohydrate. Saturated plus trans fat cannot exceed total fat.
- Per-serve against per-100. The per-serve column must be the per-100 column scaled by the declared serving size.
- %RDA against the reference value. The percentage has to follow from the declared amount and the published reference, not from a rounder number.
Our label engine runs exactly these, which is why the findings it returns are arithmetic rather than opinion.
Where panels go wrong
Three recurring causes. A recipe changed and the panel did not. A lab report was transcribed into the artwork by hand. Or the serving size was chosen for marketing reasons and the per-serve column was never recalculated.
Rounding is the fourth: rounding each figure independently, then letting the totals disagree, is what turns a small inconsistency into a visible one.
If the front of the pack makes a claim
The moment the front says “high in protein”, “no added sugar”, “low fat” or “source of fibre”, the panel is no longer just information — it is the evidence for a claim, and claims are governed by the Advertising and Claims Regulations 2018. A nutrient claim that the panel does not support is a section 53 exposure, with a ceiling of ₹10 lakh.