Are you ready for the new version of the NPC?

To assist manufacturers and other food businesses with an estimate of what could be included on the nutritional panel of each  packaged foods, Food Standards Australia New Zealand has a wonderful tool on it’s website called the Nutritional Panel Calculator (NPC).

Of course, the only certain way of knowing what the nutritional content is of a food is for it to be tested by an accredited laboratory.

Use of the NPC requires that the user agrees to the terms of use before starting, which includes the recognition that the results obtained from the NPC are an estimate only based on the database in the NPC and the information entered by the user and so cannot be to taken as legally correct.

With that said, this tool is  an absolutely essential part of any product development process for packaged foods, to give an indication of the nutritional panel or even for non food manufacturers like aged care centres to work out an estimate of the nutritional content of their meals to help them address the specific dietary requirements of their clients / consumers / residents.

The NPC has been undergoing a review and update of the database, calculations and spreadsheets and the new version will be available after 19 July 2020.

If you have been using the NPC already, you will need to back up any data you have entered into it as it will be disappearing as of the 19 July 2020. There are details on how to do this on the NPC page.

For more information about the Nutritional Panel Calculator and what is happening with the rollout of the new version go to https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/npc/Pages/Nutrition-Panel-Calculator-introduction.aspx