No sugar, no problem? The limits of Singapore’s Nutri-Grade labels
Consumers need to learn how to make better-informed decisions about what is truly healthy.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Label awareness is prompting consumers to pivot towards “healthier” alternatives to sugary drinks, but does not reduce reliance on sweetened beverages, the writers say.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Jared Ng and Mary Chong
There is a bright spot in the latest National Nutrition Survey. Even as calorie and sodium levels in consumption have gone up, the average daily sugar intake dropped from 60g in 2018 to 48g in 2025.
That encouraging downward trend is no accident, driven in part by a simple front-of-pack packaging nudge that many of us are familiar with by now. The Nutri-Grade label system assigns beverages a colour-coded grade on the front of the product, ranging from A to D based on the healthiness criteria of sugar and saturated fat.