Schokoladentafeln
Dragees
Kuchen & Muffins
Süßigkeiten & Fruchtgummis
Cookies
Dessertsaucen
Waffeln
Aufstriche
Müsliriegel
Geschenkkörbe
Verkauf & Sonderangebote
Low Sugar vs Sugar Free: What UK Food Labels Prove
Low sugar and sugar free are two different legal thresholds. UK law lets a solid food claim low sugar at no more than 5 g of sugars per 100 g, while sugar free is reserved for 0.5 g per 100 g. No added sugar is a third claim, about the recipe rather than the number.
Four phrases do most of the work on a British sugar label: low sugar, sugar free, no added sugar and reduced sugar. Most shoppers read them as rough synonyms. In UK law each is a separate promise with its own test. A brand that fails the test cannot print the words.
What does low sugar mean on a UK label?
Low sugar is the looser of the two numerical thresholds. A solid food qualifies at 5 g of sugars per 100 g or under. For a drink the bar drops to 2.5 g per 100 ml. Sugar free makes no such split, sitting at 0.5 g whether the food is solid or liquid. The condition of use sits in the annex of the assimilated nutrition and health claims regulation:
A claim that a food is low in sugars, and any claim likely to have the same meaning for the consumer, may only be made where the product contains no more than 5 g of sugars per 100 g for solids or 2,5 g of sugars per 100 ml for liquids.
Annex to Regulation 1924/2006, as assimilated in Great Britain.
A food at 4.9 g per 100 g is legally low in sugar even though a 100 g portion still carries close to a teaspoon and a quarter of sugars. The phrase also says nothing about how the food was made. A cake reformulated down to 5 g can carry it. So can a food that was never sweet in the first place.
What does reduced sugar have to prove?
Reduced sugar is the only relative claim of the four. The food must hold at least 30 percent less sugars than a similar product, so the claim only stands if a real comparison product exists.
One extra condition was added in 2012 to close an obvious loophole. Before it, a manufacturer could strip out 30 percent of the sugars, replace the bulk with fat and sell the result as reduced sugar while the calorie count climbed. Since then the energy of the food carrying the claim must be equal to or lower than the energy of the similar product it is measured against.
Reduced compared with what? A good label answers that on the pack.
How do the four claims compare?
| Claim | Limit | Also |
|---|---|---|
| Low sugar |
5 g maximum per 100 g |
2.5 g for liquids |
| Sugar free |
0.5 g maximum per 100 g or ml |
no solid or liquid split |
| No added sugar |
none added no threshold applies |
recipe, not figure |
| Reduced sugar |
30% less versus a similar food |
energy no higher |
Low sugar and sugar free sit side by side on a shelf and sound like neighbours, yet low sugar permits ten times the sugars of sugar free.
No added sugar is the odd one out, because it sets no number at all. It says no sugars were added and no food was used to sweeten the recipe. Sweeteners such as maltitol are not sugars under that test, so a no added sugar recipe can still taste sweet. Where sugars occur naturally in an ingredient, the pack must also state that it contains naturally occurring sugars. Our fuller comparison of those two lives in sugar free vs no added sugar.
Which claim does each Diablo pack carry?
Every Diablo pack carries one of two claims from that table, Sugar Free or No Added Sugar. The nutrition table on the back has to support whichever words are on the front.
Sugar Free Strawberry and Cream Sweets
Carries the strict claim: 0.5 g sugars per 100 g with 86.8 g polyols doing the sweetening
Carries the recipe claim: 6.7 g sugars per 100 g, all of it naturally occurring lactose from the milk
Our No Added Sugar packs state that they contain naturally occurring sugars.
The sweets meet the tightest of the sugar thresholds, so their pack carries the strictest words available. No sugars were added to the milk chocolate, yet milk brings its own lactose, so the recipe claim is the accurate one and the table says 6.7 g, which is above the 5 g low sugar line on lactose alone.
The sweetness in both comes from polyols: isomalt with maltitol syrup in the sweets, maltitol in the chocolate. You can read maltitol's full story in our guide to what maltitol is. Polyols are absorbed slowly and only in part. That slow uptake is where their lower energy comes from. They are best enjoyed a few pieces at a time. Our guide to sugar alcohols covers the wider family.
Frequently asked questions
Is low sugar better than sugar free?
Sugar free is the stricter of the two by a factor of ten: 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g against 5 g for low sugar. A food can only print the words it can prove, so the claim on the front tells you which test the recipe passed.
Why do I rarely see low sugar on confectionery?
Because 5 g per 100 g is a hard number for a sweet food to land on by reformulation alone. Most confectionery that removes sugar replaces it with polyols and clears the sugar free threshold outright, so that is the claim the pack carries. Foods that are naturally low in sugars, such as plain dairy, use it more often.
Does no added sugar mean the food has no sugars at all?
No. It means none were added. Sugars already present in an ingredient still appear on the nutrition table. UK law also requires the pack to say that it contains naturally occurring sugars. On our No Added Sugar Milk Chocolate the table reads 6.7 g per 100 g, every gram of it lactose from the milk.