Consumers

Reading a Thai nutrition label in five steps

9 min read · Updated 27 Oct 2026

How to read a Thai nutrition label, and why it is worth learning

Learning how to read a Thai nutrition label means looking at the “Nutrition information” panel on a food pack and understanding how much energy, fat, sugar and sodium one serving gives you, and what share of the daily reference that is. Once you know the order, it takes less than a minute to compare two brands on the shelf.

Ministry of Public Health Notification No. 445 B.E. 2566 (2023) on nutrition labelling explains that the label exists so consumers can see the types and amounts of nutrients in a food and compare nutrients between foods of the same type. It took effect on 2 July 2024 and introduced the new panel formats you will see on more and more products.

Which foods carry a nutrition label

Not every food needs one. Clause 3 of Notification No. 445 requires it when a food makes a nutrition claim (such as high protein or low sugar), makes a health claim, uses nutritional value to promote sales, or belongs to a group named by the Minister, such as the 13 food groups that must show a GDA label. The panel must always be in Thai. A food without the panel is not necessarily breaking the law.

The Thai nutrition facts table: what each part means

The standard Thai nutrition facts table in Annex 1 to Notification No. 445 has four main sections, from top to bottom:

1. Section 1, the heading: “Nutrition information”, followed by “… servings per …”, which tells you how many servings are in the pack.
2. Section 2, serving size and energy: “Amount per serving: … (…)” gives the serving in grams or millilitres, followed by energy in kilocalories.
3. Section 3, nutrients: total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, protein, total carbohydrate, total sugars, sodium and potassium, with a column for “percentage of daily reference”.
4. Section 4, footnote: the percentages are based on Thai reference daily intakes for an energy need of 2,000 kcal a day.

Some formats add a Section 5 listing daily amounts for someone who needs 2,000 kcal a day: total fat less than 65 g, saturated fat less than 20 g, cholesterol less than 300 mg, total carbohydrate 300 g and sodium less than 2,000 mg, plus energy per gram: fat 9, protein 4 and carbohydrate 4 kcal.

What the new panel looks like

Since Notification No. 467 took effect on 12 December 2025, the panel background must be white, the text must be the same colour as the border, and the “Nutrition information” heading and energy value must be bold and at least 1.5 mm high. Labels smaller than 80 square centimetres may use a running-text line instead of a table, and some products show English alongside the Thai.

Old-style labels are still on shelves

The Food Division Q&A says foods given a serial number before 2 July 2024 may keep the old No. 182 label until 1 July 2027 at the latest. Old labels may use the terms “one serving” and “number of servings per …”. Annex 2 of Notification No. 445 treats these as meaning the same as “amount eaten per time” and “number of times per container”, so you read them the same way.

Reading a nutrition label in five steps

These five steps work for every panel format:

1. Check how many servings are in the pack. Always read the “… servings per …” line first. If it says two servings per bag, every number in the panel is for half the bag.
2. Check the serving size. The “Amount per serving” line gives the weight or volume per serving. Annex 2 explains that it is the amount the manufacturer recommends per serving, based on how much a typical Thai person finishes at one time.
3. Check the energy. The kilocalorie figure in Section 2 is per serving. If you eat the whole pack, multiply by the number of servings.
4. Check the nutrients you care about, especially saturated fat, total sugars and sodium, the numbers most people use to compare products.
5. Check the percentage of daily reference. It shows what share of the full-day reference one serving represents. A higher percentage means the food contains more of that nutrient relative to the reference.

Note that protein and total sugars do not have to be shown as percentages under clause 2.6 of Annex 1, so their percentage boxes are often blank. That is the normal format, not a printing error.

Also, the reference is based on 2,000 kcal a day, a midpoint for comparison. The panel format with Section 5 itself says that individual energy needs differ.

Nutrition label percent daily value: a worked example

Let us read the nutrition label of an imaginary bag of snacks. The figures below only illustrate the method; they are not data for a real product.

Someone who sees 150 kcal may think it is for the whole bag. If they eat it all at once, they get twice the energy and sodium shown on the label. That is why step one is always to check the number of servings.

The 10% for sodium is based on the sodium reference of less than 2,000 mg a day, so eating the whole bag equals 20% of the daily reference.

Comparing two products fairly

When you compare two brands, check whether their serving sizes are the same. If not, per-serving figures cannot be compared directly. Convert to per 100 g first, or look for products that use the per-100 g panel, which the notification allows for some foods instead of servings per pack.

What a zero or “less than” on the label really means

Many people see a 0 on the label and assume the food contains none of that nutrient. But clause 2.6 of Annex 1 to Notification No. 445 sets rounding rules, so very small amounts can be shown as 0 or as “less than”.

• Energy below 5 kcal per serving is shown as 0.
• Total fat and saturated fat below 0.5 g are shown as 0.
• Trans fat of zero is shown as 0; below 0.5 g it is shown as “less than 0.5”.
• Cholesterol below 2 mg is shown as 0; from 2 to under 5 mg it is shown as “less than 5”.
• Protein, carbohydrate, dietary fibre and total sugars below 0.5 g are shown as 0; from 0.5 to under 1 g they are shown as “less than 1”.
• Sodium and potassium below 5 mg are shown as 0.

For consumers, a 0 per serving may mean “too little to be significant under the rules”, not necessarily nothing at all. If you eat several servings a day, these small amounts can add up.

Vitamins and minerals other than sodium and potassium that are below 5% of the recommended daily amount are not shown in the panel. Not seeing a vitamin on the label does not mean the food has none.

Where the numbers come from

The Food Division Q&A says energy and nutrient values must come from laboratory analysis of the finished product, by a government laboratory or one accredited to ISO/IEC 17025. Calculating from the recipe is not accepted, and imported foods cannot copy figures from their foreign label.

How to read food labels in Thailand: the GDA front label and nutrition claims

Beyond the panel on the back, two more parts of the pack are worth understanding.

The GDA label on the front

Ministry of Public Health Notification No. 394 (2018) requires 13 food groups, such as snacks, chocolate, bakery products, instant noodles, beverages in sealed containers and flavoured milk, to show energy, sugar, fat and sodium in GDA format on the front of the label.

The difference from the back panel is that Notification No. 466 (2025) states that GDA values are per whole package, calculated as the amount per serving multiplied by the number of servings, with percentages based on 2,000 kcal energy, 65 g sugar, 65 g fat and 2,000 mg sodium. Front-of-pack numbers are therefore often higher than the back, because they cover the whole pack. Read more in GDA labels in Thailand. For the Healthier Choice logo, see Thailand’s Healthier Choice logo.

Claims such as “reduced sugar” or “calcium enriched”

Nutrition claims must meet the criteria in Annex 4 of Notification No. 445. The Food Division Q&A gives examples: “reduced” requires a reduction of at least 25%, “increased” or “enriched” requires at least 10% of the reference more, the claim must meet the criteria both per serving as labelled and per reference serving, and a claim may not appear in English only.

A food with a claim must always carry a nutrition panel, so you can turn the pack over and check. A product promoting reduced sugar may still be high in fat or sodium; reading the whole panel gives a fuller picture than the words on the front.

Limits of the nutrition label you should know

• Not every food has a nutrition label. Clause 7 of Notification No. 445 exempts foods not sold directly to consumers, food cooked and sold directly by the cook, and individual packs sold inside a larger pack. The Q&A adds that bakery items made and sold over the counter do not need one.
• Infant foods and medical foods have their own rules. These are outside Notification No. 445 and follow their own labelling notifications.
• The reference is a midpoint. Percentages are based on 2,000 kcal a day and are not calculated for children, older people or people with specific health conditions.
• The label gives information, not a verdict. It is for comparing similar products. Planning meals for a medical condition should be done with a doctor or dietitian.

If you find a label whose numbers look wrong, for example front and back figures that clearly contradict each other, or a claim with no nutrition panel, keep photos of the label and ask the manufacturer, or call the consumer hotline 1556.

Summary: make reading the label a habit

Reading a nutrition label is about order, not memorising numbers.

• Always check servings per pack first. The numbers are for one serving, not the whole pack.
• Use the percentage of daily reference to compare. It is based on 2,000 kcal a day.
• A 0 may not be zero. Very small amounts are rounded to 0 under the rules.
• The GDA label on the front covers the whole pack, while the back panel is per serving.

Brand owners who want to check their own labels can use our label checker. For the rules that apply to manufacturers, read full vs short Thai nutrition labels and nutrition label amendment No. 467. Teams that want training on reading and preparing labels can see our training courses.

Sources

1. MOPH Notification No. 445 B.E. 2566 (2023) on nutrition labelling · Open source · Search our archive
2. MOPH Notification No. 467 B.E. 2568 (2025) on nutrition labelling (No. 2) · Open source · Search our archive
3. Example nutrition panel formats under Notification No. 445 (Food Division) · Open source · Search our archive
4. Q&A on Notification No. 445 on nutrition labelling (Food Division) · Open source · Search our archive
5. MOPH Notification No. 394 (2018) on foods requiring nutrition and GDA labelling · Open source · Search our archive
6. MOPH Notification No. 466 B.E. 2568 (2025) on foods requiring nutrition and GDA labelling (No. 3) · Open source · Search our archive

This article is for general information. It is not a Thai FDA ruling or legal advice, and rules change — check the latest notification or ask an expert before filing or producing.

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