Verifying the Use of Food Labeling Data for Compiling Branded Food Databases: A Case Study of Sugars in Beverages

Abstract

Branded food composition databases are an important tool for research, education, healthcare, and policy making, amongst others. Such databases are typically compiled using food labeling data without chemical analyses of specific products. This study aimed to verify whether the labeled sugar content in sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) corresponds to the actual sugar content in these products, thus enabling food monitoring studies to be conducted. A secondary objective was to determine the specific types of sugars in these SSBs. A case study was conducted using market share-driven sampling of these beverages from the Slovenian food supply. On the basis of nationwide yearly sales data, 51 best-selling products were sampled in 2020 and analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography. This sales-driven approach to sampling has been shown to be very useful for conducting food monitoring studies. With the careful selection of a small proportion of available products, we finished with a manageable sample size, reflecting the composition of a majority (69%) of the national market share volume. The analyzed total sugar content was compared with labeled data, within the context of the European Union's regulatory labeling tolerances. In all samples, the sugar content was within the tolerance levels. The most common (N = 41) deviation was within ±10% of the labeled sugar content. In the subcategories, the differences between the analyzed and labeled median sugar contents were not statistically significant. Sucrose was most commonly (N = 36; 71%) used for sweetening, suggesting that the proportion of fructose in most SSBs was around 50%. A higher fructose content was only observed in beverages with fructose–glucose syrup or a higher content of fruit juice. The study results show that the labeled sugar content information in SSBs is reliable and can be used to compile branded food databases and monitor the nutritional quality of foods in the food supply.

Changes in the Sodium Content in Branded Foods in the Slovenian Food Supply (2011–2020)

“…Chemical analysis of all the marketed foods is simply not feasible, while a randomised analysis approach would result in other limitations. As food labelling data have proven to be a reliable data source in the scientific studies of other nutrients [65], we have no reason to speculate that the labelling data on sodium content would be less reliable.…”

Food composition data: can we take it for granted? : Quality considerations in the production and use of food composition data

“…Checks differ per database and may include checking barcodes to avoid duplicates, checking product identification and time stamps, checking outliers, checking if values are within an accepted range, checks on overall data accuracy or chemical analyses for selected foods to compare with label data. For some databases checks are done to guarantee that data entry was exactly similar to the label data or data can only be uploaded if all mandatory information is present (Ahmed et al, 2022;Hafner et al, 2022;Katidi et al, 2021;Larrick et al, 2022;Menard et al, 2011;Pravst et al, 2022). To create branded food databases that are comparable and interchangeable and that allow for easy identification of fortified foods, work is needed to further standardise approaches and harmonise data documentation.…”