ObjectivesTo comprehensively survey the sugar and nutrient contents of yogurt products available in UK supermarkets, in particular those marketed to children.DesignA cross-sectional survey of yogurt products available in the UK’s supermarkets in November 2016.MethodsData were collected from five major online UK supermarkets and a process flow strategy was used to place yogurts into eight categories: children’s, dairy alternatives, dessert, drinks, fruit, flavoured, natural/Greek style and organic. A comprehensive database of product information for 921 unique products was created and analysed.ResultsThe total sugar, fat, protein, calcium and energy contents were highly variable across categories, and the ranges were extremely broad. Although lower than the dessert category, the medians (range) of the total sugar content of children’s (10.8 g/100 g (4.8–14.5)), fruit (11.9 g/100 g (4.6–21.3)), flavoured (12.0 g/100 g (0.1–18.8)) and organic (13.1 g/100 g (3.8–16.9)) yogurt products were all well above 10 g/100 g, and represented >45% of total energy. Only two out of 101 children’s yogurt and fromage frais products surveyed qualified as low sugar (≤5 g/100 g). Natural/Greek yogurts had dramatically lower sugar contents (5.0 g/100 g (1.6, 9.5), largely lactose) than all other categories. While low-fat (<3 g/100 g) products had less sugar and energy than higher fat yogurts, nonetheless 55% (285 of 518 low-fat yogurts) contained between 10 and 20 g sugar/100 g. Within the children’s category, fromage frais had higher protein (5.3 g/100 g (3.3, 8.6) vs 3.2 (2.8, 7.1); p<0.0001) and calcium contents (150 mg/100 g (90, 240) vs 130.5 mg/100 g (114, 258); p=0.0015) than yogurts.ConclusionsWhile there is good evidence that yogurt can be beneficial to health, products on the market vary widely in total sugars. Fewer than 9%, and only 2% of the children’s, products surveyed were low enough in sugar to earn ‘green’ in UK front of the pack labelling. Reformulation for the reduction of free sugars in yogurts is warranted.

Yoghurt is defined by Codex as a product of the fermentation of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus (LBST) (1) . Considered a nutritious food product, yoghurt is a good source of protein, calcium and vitamin D, along with probiotics; and its consumption has been associated with lower risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in children and adults (2,3) . However, data are mixed and the high sugar content of yogurts has been highlighted in recent UK government guidelines for 20 % reduction of total sugar (including a target of 3·8 g/100 g lactose in yogurt or fromage frais) by 2020 (4) . In this context, the aims of this work were to do a comprehensive survey of the current yoghurt market in the UK, and to analyse the nutrient content across all yoghurts categories.Data was collected from the UK's top five online supermarkets (Kantar Worldpanel, 2016): Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose, from 07/10/16-16/11/16. Eight categories were used to divide and classify each product systematically using a process flow strategy. Data were screened for duplicates and a non-redundant database of product information was created that included: nutrient information, serving size, size of pack, claims on pack and ingredients. All data was double-checked and 5 % of all entries were randomly selected and verified.After removing duplicates, 921 unique products were catalogued in our 8 a priori defined categories: Dairy Alternatives, Dessert, Drinks, Flavoured, Fruit, Kids, Natural and Greek, Organic. Venn analysis demonstrated that of these, only 65 were found in all supermarkets. While 43·6 % of products (n = 402) contained cultures, less that 40 % of these named the cultures and only10·5 % contained the LBST cultures defined by Codex. As illustrated in Fig 1. the median of energy, fat and sugar contents per 100 g of product were highly variable across categories and the range extremely broad. Although lower than the dessert category, medians of sugar in flavoured, fruit and kid yoghurt categories were well above 10 g/100 g. Remarkably, 86 % of Kids's yoghurts contained sugar that contributed to >40 % of total calories and only 1·7 % of Kids yoghurts were low in sugar (