The Health Claims Nutrient Profiling Scoring Criterion Calculator (the Calculator) has been developed to assist food businesses and enforcement agencies to determine if a food product would be eligible to make a health claim under the nutrient profiling scoring criterion (the criterion). This criterion has been proposed under Proposal P293 - Nutrition, Health & Related Claims, and the resultant draft Standard 1.2.7 - Nutrition, Health and Related Claims. The criterion is based on the food's nutrient profile. For foods that are eligible, you would also need to consider whether they meet any qualifying criteria for the particular property they are claiming (e.g. fat, dietary fibre).

Standard 1.2.7 is still under development and modifications to the Calculator are still being piloted. The Calculator is therefore subject to change until Standard 1.2.7 is gazetted. The current version of the Calculator is based on draft Standard 1.2.7 as recommended in the Final Assessment Report for Proposal P293 (a copy of this version of the draft Standard can be found at Attachment 1 of the Final Assessment Report.

The criterion was based on a nutrient profiling model designed by M. Rayner and colleagues and adopted by the UK Food Standards Agency. Several modifications have been made by FSANZ to the UK model to adapt it for use to determine the eligibility of foods to carry health claims. An additional food category has been created to consider the eligibility of edible oils, edible oil spreads, margarine, and butter, and cheese and processed cheese with a calcium level greater than 320 mg/100 g. The FSANZ model has been tested with over 10,000 foods using a database compiled from Australian and New Zealand foods.

Click here for information on the initial models considered when establishing the criterion. Please note, the document at this link does not extend to modelling based on versions beyond the criterion proposed in the Preliminary Final Assessment Report for Proposal P293.

Following the Preliminary Final Assessment for Proposal P293, issues raised by stakeholders were considered and ongoing amendments made to the criterion and to the Calculator.

Click here for more detailed information on the calculation methods proposed in the Final Assessment Report for determining foods eligible to make health claims.

Any comments or questions regarding the Calculator should be directed to nutrientprofiling@foodstandards.gov.au.