Analytical Report - Fruit and milk sweets

Fruit based sweets have always been a popular sugar confectionery product. More recently some advertising has emphasised the presence of fruit e.g. ‘made with real fruit’, ‘contains fruit juice’ This perhaps comes on the back of the 5 A Day message to eat more fruit and vegetables. This may lead to them being regarded as a better sweet option. Similarly an increasing number of sweets are highlighting that they contain milk.

However most sweets contain substantial amounts of extrinsic sugars, which as they are of usually eaten by children contribute significantly to tooth decay.

Forty samples of sweets were submitted for analysis by West Kent Trading Standards in October 2006. Twenty of these were milk based and twenty fruit based. They were all purchased from supermarkets. The analysis focussed on sugar, milk and fruit content.

Summary of results

Determination of the milk content was complicated by presence of more than one milk based product (eg dried skimmed milk, lactose, whey protein). Similarly, determination of the fruit content was often frustrated by the presence of small amounts of multiple fruits, all of which contain different amounts of potassium and phosphorus.

Nine were reported as being unsatisfactory for food labelling matters.

Three samples appeared to have been wrongly labelled. The ingredients list included milk products and lactose should therefore have been present but none was found. Another sample declared “Made only with natural flavours”, and that it was “Fruit Flavoured”. It contained less than 2% fruit juice which may not warrant such descriptions. Other samples had minor errors in relation to format of the labelling. All these matters will be taken up with the manufacturers.

The table below gives the average sugar composition of the sweets, in %.

As expected, milky sweets contain (on average) much more lactose (sugar from milk) and much less glucose and fructose than the fruity sweets. In both cases the amount of added sucrose is very high, which is a risk for dental decay. Just because the sweets are fruit or milk based does not therefore make them any better for dental health than other sweets.

It is difficult to estimate what a “typical” portion is. Assuming that (given the chance) a child would eat an ounce, then on average a milky sweet will contain about 12g of added sugars and a fruit sweet about 4g. There are no Recommended Daily Amounts for sugars for children, although the FSA recommended a maximum of 60g per day for adults. Children should eat proportionately less, so it can be seen that an ounce of sweets could easily provide half of the sugar for a child.

Under the FSA traffic light scheme, sugars must be labelled as high (red) if the product contains more than 15g/100g. Most of these products contain two or three times this.

Report Date: December 2006