Reading a baby food ingredient list in Australia comes down to seven rules, not intuition. Turn a pouch over and the panel looks arbitrary: nine names deep, half of them plurals you’ve never cooked with. It’s not arbitrary. FSANZ’s Food Standards Code sets exactly how that list has to be built, ordered and labelled. Here’s what those rules actually say.
What order are ingredients listed in on an Australian label?
Descending order by ingoing weight, heaviest first. That’s the entire rule for sequence (FSANZ, Ingredient lists and percentage labelling). The first ingredient contributed the most to the recipe; the last, the least. In practice: read the first two or three names and you’ve read most of what’s actually in the pouch. Everything after that is detail.
What does a percentage claim on the front of pack actually mean?
A percentage on the front ties to one ingredient, not the whole product. FSANZ calls that ingredient a characterising ingredient — the one named in the product’s title, or pictured prominently enough that a shopper would expect to find it (FSANZ, Ingredient lists and percentage labelling). A yoghurt calling itself “strawberry” has to state what percentage of it is actually strawberry. Plain foods with nothing to characterise — white bread, a basic cheese — can carry no percentage at all. That’s still compliant.
What does “natural flavour” mean on an ingredient list?
One word can stand in for several substances. Flavourings are one of the few ingredient categories the Code allows onto a label under a class name only, with no individual naming and no additive number (FSANZ, Food additive labelling). That’s not evasive labelling; it’s the shorthand the Code actually permits. The word tells you a flavouring was used. It was never going to say which one.
Which allergens have to be declared, and where?
Egg, milk, peanut, wheat and the rest of the Code’s declarable allergen list must appear in bold wherever they show up in the ingredient list, including when they’re hiding inside a bigger ingredient name — “cheese (milk),” not just “cheese” (FSANZ, Allergen labelling for consumers). The Code goes a step further than that. A separate bolded summary statement, starting with the word “Contains,” also has to sit near the ingredient list (FSANZ, Allergen labelling for consumers). For a parent scanning a pouch one-handed, that line does most of the work: “Contains: milk, soy” tells you more in one glance than working through the full ingredient list word by word.
What does “may contain traces of” actually mean?
It’s a warning about the factory, not the recipe. Precautionary lines like “may contain traces of…” are voluntary — the Food Standards Code doesn’t regulate them at all (FSANZ, Allergen labelling for consumers). A manufacturer adds one because of what else runs through their production line, separate from the mandatory bolded allergen declarations the Code actually requires. Two real AU packs land on opposite sides of that split, one carrying only the voluntary line and one where the mandatory declarations apply: ‘May contain’ on a baby food label in Australia: which part is law. Voluntary doesn’t mean meaningless — it means the wording, and the judgment behind it, varies by brand.
If the label in your hand is a formula tin rather than a pouch, there’s a newer, formula-specific change worth knowing: HiMOs, the ingredient class FSANZ just approved for infant formula.
How do you compare two products fairly?
Use the “per 100 g” column, not “per serve.” Two pouches with different serve sizes will never line up if you’re comparing per-serve numbers, since each manufacturer sets its own serve size. The per-100 g (or 100 mL) column is standardised across every product on the shelf (FSANZ, Nutrition information panels). It’s the one column built for comparison, not personal tracking.
The five-second version
| On the label | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Ingredient order | Heaviest ingredient first, lightest last |
| A front-of-pack percentage | Ties to one named ingredient, not the whole product |
| ”Flavour” / “natural flavour” | A permitted group term covering one or more substances |
| Bold word inside the ingredient list | A mandatory allergen declaration |
| Bold “Contains…” line near the list | A required summary of every declared allergen |
| ”May contain traces of…” | A voluntary line about production, not the recipe |
| The “per 100 g” column | The fair way to compare two different products |
None of this requires becoming a food scientist in the yoghurt aisle. Read the first three ingredients. Check the “Contains” line before you comb the ingredient list itself — it’s the fastest summary on the pack. If you’re comparing two products, the per-100 g column is the one built for that. That’s most of what a label is actually there to tell you.
Peeka turns this same reading into one of four plain grades, scored against your own child’s profile.
General information, not medical advice. Chat with your GP or child health nurse.