What QUID is
QUID is short for quantitative ingredient declaration. It is the requirement in food information law that the quantity of certain ingredients, or categories of ingredient, used in the manufacture or preparation of a food is declared as a percentage.
Its function is precise and narrow. Where a label draws attention to an ingredient, QUID makes the label state how much of that ingredient is there. It converts an impression into a number, which is why it is the most useful single mechanism on a back panel for a shopper testing a front panel.
The percentage is expressed at the time of use of the ingredients, on the same basis as the ingredients list itself. That means QUID inherits the input weight convention and its consequences.
The three triggers
QUID is not a general obligation to quantify everything. It is triggered in defined circumstances, and knowing them explains almost every apparent inconsistency between packs.
The ingredient appears in the name of the food. If the product is named after an ingredient, that ingredient has to be quantified. This is the most common trigger and the easiest to spot.
The ingredient is emphasised on the label in words, pictures or graphics. Emphasis is the broad one. A photograph of an ingredient on the front, a large flash naming it, a decorative illustration: all of these can constitute emphasis and pull the ingredient into the QUID obligation. This is the trigger that most rewards attention, because a pack that leans heavily on an image is a pack that usually has to state a number.
The ingredient is essential to characterise the food and to distinguish it from products with which it might be confused. This trigger deals with cases where the name and imagery are silent but the ingredient is what makes the product the kind of thing it is.
Where none of these applies, no percentage is required, and the absence of a number is not a signal of anything. It simply means the label did not draw attention to that ingredient in a way that engaged the rule.
| Situation on the pack | Percentage required | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredient named in the product name | Yes | Name trigger |
| Ingredient shown in a front-of-pack photograph | Usually | Emphasis in pictures or graphics |
| Ingredient named in a large front-of-pack flash | Usually | Emphasis in words |
| Ingredient essential to what the food is | Yes | Characterising ingredient trigger |
| Ingredient used in a small quantity for flavouring | Generally no | Specific exemption in the rules |
| Ingredient present but not mentioned or pictured | No | No trigger engaged |
Structure set out by this newsroom from the published rules named in the sources below. It is not a survey, a measurement or a market study.
The exemptions, which are real
There are defined situations where QUID does not apply even though one of the triggers appears to be present. They exist because a percentage would be misleading or meaningless in those cases.
Ingredients used in small quantities for flavouring purposes are treated differently, because a percentage would suggest a significance the ingredient does not have by weight. Ingredients whose quantity is already governed by a specific rule may be handled under that rule instead. Where the name of a food refers to a category of ingredient rather than a specific one, the treatment differs again. And where variations in quantity do not affect the character of the food, or where the food is a mixture in which no ingredient predominates, different provisions apply.
The point for a reader is not to memorise the exemptions, but to know they exist, so that a missing percentage is read as a rules question rather than as evasion.
What a QUID number means and what it does not
A QUID figure is a proportion of the total recipe by input weight. Several things follow.
It is not a proportion of the finished product where processing removes mass. A product that loses water during cooking will contain a higher final proportion of the declared ingredient than the QUID figure suggests. Conversely, a product to which water is added will contain a lower final proportion than the input figure implies. The direction of the difference depends on the process.
It is not a statement about the form of the ingredient. An ingredient can be declared at a given percentage whether it entered as fresh, dried, concentrated, purée, powder or paste, subject to the specific rules on how each is expressed. The ingredients list is the place to see which form was used, and the two should be read together.
It is not a quality signal. A higher percentage of a named ingredient tells you about the composition of the recipe and nothing about how the product tastes, how it performs, or whether it suits you. This publication does not rank foods and does not treat a higher number as a better one.
Using QUID to compare two products
QUID is at its most powerful in a like-for-like comparison, and at its weakest across categories.
Two products of the same type, named after the same ingredient, with QUID figures declared on the same basis, are directly comparable on that one dimension. This is the comparison the rule is best suited to, and it is a genuinely useful one to make on a shelf.
Two products of different types are not comparable this way, because the processing differs, the basis of the declaration may differ, and the ingredient may be doing a different job in each. A percentage lifted out of its product context is not a number that travels.
A third case is worth noting: two products where one declares a percentage and the other does not. That difference usually means the labels emphasise different things, not that one contains more. Absence of a QUID figure is absence of a trigger.
Why the rule is designed this way
It would be simpler for readers if every ingredient carried a percentage. The reason the rule is targeted instead is a trade-off between information and enforceability.
Full quantification of every ingredient on every pack would expose complete recipes, which manufacturers treat as commercially sensitive, and would create a very large compliance and verification burden for a marginal gain on the ingredients that nobody is drawing attention to. The targeted rule concentrates the obligation exactly where the potential to mislead is highest, which is the ingredient the pack itself has chosen to promote.
Read that way, QUID is not a partial disclosure rule that fell short. It is a rule aimed squarely at the gap between what a pack implies and what a recipe contains, and it is the most direct tool a shopper has for closing that gap.
Where this stops
QUID is a compositional declaration and nothing more. It carries no nutritional meaning, it is not a health indicator, and a percentage should not be read as a verdict on a food. Anything touching diet, allergy or a medical condition belongs with the NHS or a registered dietitian, not with a percentage on a pack.
Elsewhere on Feedworthy. What a food hygiene rating covers, and what it does not. Own label tiers: how a retailer's own range is constructed.