A number in brackets on an Australian ingredient list looks like a shortcut a manufacturer took. It isn’t one. Where a food additive fits a class the Code lists, thickener, stabiliser, preservative and so on, the label has to print that class name; the only choice is what goes inside the brackets after it, the substance’s name or its code number, because the Code reads those two as the same declaration. What the bracketed number stands in for, and why one entry on a panel gets a name while the next gets three digits, isn’t something the pack itself explains.
Brooklea Stampede Chocolate, a 140 g dairy snack pouch sold at ALDI for $1.99 in September 2026, is a useful pack to test that on. Its ingredient statement runs to eight entries. Two of them, Thickener (1442) and Stabilisers [407, 415 (Soy)], carry three code numbers between them; the other six carry none. Two of the panel’s brackets carry a different kind of declaration: Cream (Milk) is a mandatory allergen declaration under Standard 1.2.3, and so is the (Soy) inside Stabilisers [407, 415 (Soy)], sitting in the same bracket as two code numbers, not instead of them. Alkalised Cocoa Powder (1.2%) is neither: it’s a proportion declaration for a characterising ingredient under Standard 1.2.10.
Two ways to write the same entry
Turn the pouch over and the statement runs:
Milk, Sugar, Cream (Milk), Thickener (1442), Alkalised Cocoa Powder (1.2%), Milk Solids, Stabilisers [407, 415 (Soy)], Flavour.
Standard 1.2.4 is the rule behind the two entries you’ve just read that carry code numbers. Section 1.2.4-7(1) sets out how a food additive gets declared: where the substance fits a class listed in Schedule 7, the label states that class name, then in brackets “the name or code number of the substance as indicated in Schedule 8”. Print the number, or print the name: the Code reads the two as the same declaration, because Schedule 8 lists both forms against the one substance. Nothing is missing from either line. 1442 identifies the same thickener you’d get from its full chemical name.
Nineteen class names, one lookup table
Open Schedule 7 and you’ll find where “Thickener” and “Stabiliser” come from: 19 prescribed class names, covering acid, colour, emulsifier, preservative, sweetener and fourteen others, plus six optional ones for narrower jobs like modified starch and vegetable gum. Schedule 8 is the other half, a table pairing every permitted additive’s name against its code number, listed once alphabetically and once numerically. Check any of the three numbers on the Brooklea panel against it and you’ll find 1442 reads Hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate, 407 is carrageenan, 415 is xanthan gum. None of that changes what the substance is doing in the pouch. It changes only whether the name or the 4-digit code is the one printed on it.
Does a number mean it’s more processed?
None of that says a numbered entry is somehow a heavier hit than a named one, and the Code gives you no basis for reading it that way. Schedule 8 carries 300 next to ascorbic acid, vitamin C, and 330 next to citric acid. Both could be printed as a name instead of a number, and nothing about their entry in Schedule 8 ranks one form below the other. The number identifies which substance is present. The Code’s declaration format doesn’t tell you how processed the food is, or how this pouch compares to the one next to it on the shelf, that’s a different question, and 1.2.4-7 doesn’t answer it.
A rule with a section number, and a judgement call
Two different things are stacked inside that one Code section, and they don’t carry the same weight. The format each entry takes is a rule, and it is not something the manufacturer invents: 1.2.4-7(1) is one of several fixed forms the Code sets, not the only one. 1.2.4-7(4) is another, it lets a flavouring substance be listed simply as flavouring or flavour, which is exactly why Flavour sits bare on the same Brooklea panel, carrying no class name and no number at all. Which class name goes in front of a bracketed number, where a substance could fit more than one, is a different kind of choice: 1.2.4-7(2) hands that call to whoever writes the label, saying only that “the most appropriate class name must be used”.
No Artificial Colours, and three numbered additives
The Brooklea pouch carries two claims on the front of the pack: No Artificial Colours and No Added Preservatives. Turn it over and the panel lists three additives with a number, one thickener, two stabilisers. Colour and preservative are two of Schedule 7’s 19 class names; thickener and stabiliser are two others. Neither of the numbered entries on this panel is filed under either of the classes the front of pack rules out. The panel underneath still carries 1442, 407 and 415, three numbered additives doing a job neither claim rules out. Those two front-of-pack lines are voluntary claims, sitting outside Standard 1.2.4’s declaration system altogether; the ingredient statement that names 1442, 407 and 415 is not voluntary; 1.2.4-7(1) requires it.
A separate, shorter list for food represented as food for infants
407 and 415 turn out to matter again once you shift to food for the youngest end of the age range, one Brooklea’s own front-of-pack doesn’t claim to sit in. Standard 1.3.1 sets the general permission: section 1.3.1-3(1) allows a substance to be used as a food additive only where Schedule 15 permits it for that food, and any conditions attached are met. Item 13.2 of that Schedule, headed “Foods for infants”, is its own list: 24 numbered rows, covering 39 individual code numbers by Peeka’s own count of the published table, plus a separate row for permitted flavouring substances other than quinine and caffeine.
Unless the table to section S15-5 expressly provides otherwise, Schedule 15’s own rule at S15-2 says the permitted substances for a class are whatever sits directly under that heading, plus whatever sits under a heading above it; the heading above 13.2 is “13 Special purpose foods”, and it lists no substances of its own. That makes the 39 codes under item 13.2 the additives the Schedule permits to be used in that food class, not a guarantee that no other code can lawfully appear on a food-for-infants panel. A permitted additive carried over from another ingredient, or added as part of a preparation under S15-3, can still turn up in the statement; a code outside the 39 isn’t, on its own, a sign the pack breaks the rule. Check the Brooklea panel against that item 13.2 list and you’ll find 407 and 415 are both on it, each capped at 10,000 mg/kg, which is 1 gram per 100 grams of the food; 1442 is not. A maximum permitted level is the most of a substance the Code allows to be used in that food class, it doesn’t tell you the substance has been assessed as suitable for an individual infant.
An “infant”, under Standard 1.1.2, is a person under 12 months old, and “food for infants” is defined narrowly too: a food intended or represented as nourishment for that age group, with infant formula and a handful of other categories carved out. Standard 2.9.2’s test is what the food is represented as, not who actually eats from the pouch, and Brooklea Stampede Chocolate isn’t marketed or represented as food for that age group, nothing on the pack says so, so item 13.2 does not govern it. What it shows you is narrower: the Code keeps a separate, much shorter list of permitted numbers for food represented as nourishment for infants, and 39 is a small number against everything Schedule 15 permits across the rest of the food supply.
One word the Schedule doesn’t explain
There’s a loose thread in the class-name system, and it doesn’t touch this particular pouch; no food acid appears on Brooklea’s panel. Schedule 7 lists one of its 19 prescribed class names as “acid”. Australian packs routinely print a different, two-word version, Food Acid, on their own ingredient statements. The Schedule’s own text doesn’t carry that second word anywhere, and why it’s accepted on a shelf is not clear from anything Standard 1.2.4 says. That’s not a claim that any pack breaks the rule, only that the rule’s own text doesn’t say so, and this post could not settle it from the legislation alone. A statement from FSANZ on the point would; this post can name the gap in front of you and not fill it.
General information, not medical advice. Chat with your GP or child health nurse.