What Does “Low Sugar” Actually Mean?
Cottage Cheese has 3g of sugar per 100g, comfortably under the UK’s low sugar threshold for solid foods. Carrot Juice has 3.9g, which also looks like it should qualify under that same 5g figure. But juice is a real liquid, not a solid, and the actual regulation sets a genuinely lower bar for liquids than for solids, a bar Carrot Juice, at 3.9g per 100ml, doesn’t clear. Laban, a salted buttermilk drink, sits right at the edge of that lower bar, 2.5g of sugar per 100ml, and still clears it.
The real number: 5g per 100g, or 2.5g per 100ml for liquids
Under the same Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 already covered in our other articles, the exact wording is: “A claim that a food is low in sugars… may only be made where the product does not contain more than 5 g of sugars per 100 g for solids or 2.5 g of sugars per 100 ml for liquids.” The same reasoning behind our low calorie article’s own two numbers applies here too, a drink is normally consumed in a much larger portion than a solid food is eaten in, so the liquid threshold is set lower to keep the claim meaningful.
How our own badge applies this real threshold
Our Low Sugar badge applies this same real, separate liquid threshold, the same way our Low Calorie badge already does with its own 20kcal-per-100ml figure. Carrot Juice, at 3.9g of sugar per 100ml, doesn’t get the Low Sugar badge on this site: it clears the flat 5g solid figure, but genuinely fails the real regulation’s stricter 2.5g-per-100ml liquid threshold. Laban, at exactly 2.5g per 100ml, does get the badge, it’s right at the edge of that lower bar and still clears it.
Still UK law after Brexit, with one real regional difference
This regulation didn’t disappear when the UK left the EU. In Great Britain it’s now retained EU law, carried over by the Nutrition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and 2020, and enforced through the UK’s own system rather than an EU one. In Northern Ireland it still applies directly as EU law, under the terms of the Windsor Framework. Same rule, same numbers, two different legal routes to the same answer.
It governs labelling, not a verdict on a food
Same caveat as our other articles in this series: this is a rule about what can be printed on packaging or in marketing, a specific legal test for a specific claim, not a general statement about whether a food is worth eating.
Where you will see it used on this site
Our own Low Sugar badge, and every Low Sugar hub and category page, use this exact same real threshold, computed from each food’s own stored sugar figure. Cottage Cheese genuinely qualifies and appears on our Dairy & Eggs Low Sugar page. Check it for yourself, and see how the same real, stricter liquid threshold applies to drinks specifically.
*This article is general information, not legal advice. Food labelling law changes and gets re-interpreted over time, so check an official source directly if you need this for your own business’s compliance.