How to read an Australian nutrition panel

19 September 2026

Every Australian nutrition information panel has two columns: per serving and per 100 g. They are there for different jobs, and most people read the wrong one.

Per 100 g is for comparing

Serving sizes are set by the manufacturer. There is no rule forcing two brands of muesli to use the same one, so a 30 g serving and a 45 g serving sit side by side on the shelf looking like they are describing the same thing.

Per 100 g is fixed by definition. It is the only column where two products can be compared honestly. When you are standing in an aisle deciding between two packs, that is the column to use — and it is the basis for every figure on this site.

Per serving is for what you eat

Once you have chosen the product, the serving column tells you what you are getting, if you eat the serving size stated. Check what that size actually is. A “serving” of soft drink is often 250 ml when the bottle is 600 ml.

Sodium, not salt

Australian panels declare sodium, in milligrams. Salt is roughly 2.5 times its sodium content by weight, so 400 mg of sodium is about 1 g of salt.

Some rough anchors, per 100 g:

• Under 120 mg sodium is genuinely low
• 400 mg and up is high
• Table salt itself is about 38,000 mg

Sugars means all of them

The sugars line covers naturally occurring and added sugar together. Milk’s lactose and a chocolate bar’s added sucrose both land in the same row, which is why plain milk shows around 5 g and plain yoghurt similar. The panel will not tell you which is which — the ingredients list, in descending order by weight, is where you find that out.

The %DI column

Percentage daily intake is calculated against an 8,700 kJ reference adult. It is a convention for the label, not advice for you. Useful for spotting that one biscuit is 10% of a day’s energy; not useful as a personal target.