How to Set the Serving Size on a Nutrition Label

The serving size is not your choice

On a Nutrition Facts panel, the serving size is based on how much people typically eat of that food in one sitting. The FDA publishes a reference amount for each food category, and your serving size has to reflect it. You cannot shrink a cookie's serving to make the numbers look better.

Reference amounts set the serving

The FDA reference amount, sometimes called the RACC, is the customary amount eaten for a food type. You express your serving as the household measure closest to that reference: a number of cookies, a fraction of a cup, a set number of grams. The reference is per food category, so cookies, granola, and jam each have their own.

Look up the reference amount for your kind of food in the FDA table, then translate it into a plain measure a buyer understands, like 2 cookies (30 g).

Servings per container

Once the serving is set, the servings per container is the package amount divided by the serving. A bag that holds 180 grams at a 30 gram serving is 6 servings. That number sits at the top of the panel, right above the serving size.

Small packages and big ones

• If a package is small enough that people eat it all at once, it can count as a single serving, so the panel covers the whole package
• Larger packages that could be one sitting or several sometimes need a two-column panel: per serving and per package
• The reference amount is what decides which case you are in

These container rules are where sellers most often slip, so confirm your product's case against the FDA rule.

Set it once, correctly

Nutripane asks how big your serving is and how many the recipe makes, then builds every per-serving number from there. Start from the FDA reference amount for your food, enter it once, and the panel does the division for you.

Questions

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