Baby and toddler food guidelines: what to fix by February 2027

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) baby food guidelines give UK brands until the end of February 2027 to meet new sugar and salt targets for commercial baby food, finger foods and snacks. With five months to go, most products aren't there. On 21 August 2026 the Guardian reported an analysis by gut health company Alba Health of 224 baby foods and snacks from nine of the biggest brands on UK shelves. 58% broke at least one guideline. Nearly a quarter had too much sugar, and 31 snacks were marketed to babies from six months, which the guidelines say should stop.

What the OHID baby food guidelines cover

OHID published its commercial baby food and drink guidelines in August 2025. They apply to food and drink aimed at children up to 36 months: baby meals, finger foods and snacks, and baby drinks. Infant formula, follow-on formula and toddler milks are out. If your pack says 12m+ (12 months and over) or 1 to 3 years, it's in.

Businesses got 18 months to comply. That runs to the end of February 2027.

The guidelines are voluntary, but that word is doing less work than it looks. Government will monitor progress, expects to publish a progress report after February 2027, and says it "will consider additional or alternative measures if businesses fail to implement these guidelines."

Baby food sugar and salt targets, by category

Every target depends on the category, so the first job is putting each stock keeping unit (SKU) in the right box. Sugar limits use grams (g) or a share of energy. Sodium limits use milligrams (mg) per 100 kilocalories (kcal).

Snacks for under-12-month-olds must also have no added sugars. Where cheese is named on the front of pack, the sodium ceiling rises to under 100mg per 100 kcal.

Two things catch teams out. Snack sugar is a share of energy, not grams per 100g. Sodium is per 100 kcal, not per 100g. Neither number is on your nutrition panel.

Why "no added sugar" won't get a fruit snack through

The guidelines define added sugars as "sugar, honey and syrups, plus fruit and vegetable juice and juice concentrates," plus lactose and galactose used as ingredients. The only exception is a little lemon or lime juice used as a preservative.

So apple juice concentrate is an added sugar here, even on packs that have called it fruit. It's the same trap we covered under the nutrition claims rules in clean label sugar reduction.

The guidance also counts sugars in fruit and veg "purees, powders, pastes, extruded products and similar products" as free sugars, the same logic behind the Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) 2018. And because the snack targets use total sugar, every gram counts towards the energy share, whether it comes from apple, sweet potato or carrot.

How to check a finger food against the 10% and 25% targets

Annex 4 of the guidelines sets out the method: multiply sugar per 100g by 4 kcal, divide by total energy per 100g, and multiply by 100. Here it is on two strawberry and banana snacks, both on sale in UK supermarkets. The figures come from their own labels.

A 100% fruit melt, labelled 12m+. Banana purée 90%, strawberry purée 10%. Per 100g: 353 kcal and 67g sugars. That's 268 kcal from sugar, or 75.9% of energy. As a fruit-based finger food, its target is under 25%. To pass at the same energy, it would need under 22g sugar per 100g, a third of what it has now.

That isn't a reformulation gap. A melt made only of fruit purée can't get near 25%, because fruit is mostly sugar. A pass needs a different base, not a tweak, and the sugar is also doing structural work in a melt, as we covered in what sugar does in formulation.

A maize-based melty puff, labelled 6m+. Maize flour 75%, sunflower oil 13%, dried fruit about 12%. Per 100g: 447 kcal and 6.2g sugars, which is 5.5% of energy from sugar, well under the 10% target for a sweet finger food. Sodium is under 10mg per 100g, against a ceiling of about 268mg.

So the puff passes on nutrition. Its exposure is the label. It's sold for babies from six months, and the guidelines ask brands to stop marketing snacks as suitable for 12 months and under. The pack describes it as finger food with "less mess at meal times", so whether it counts as a snack will come down to interpretation. That's the kind of grey area to settle before the progress report, not after.

Because the target is a share of energy, adding non-sugar energy (wholegrain oats, pulse flour, oil) lowers the percentage without touching the sugar. That's partly why the puff scores so well. It works, but it adds calories to a baby snack, and the guidelines ask brands to consider portion sizes. Use it to close a small gap, not a big one.

Salt works the other way round. The sodium ceiling scales with energy. At 400 kcal per 100g, under 60mg per 100 kcal means under 240mg sodium per 100g (about 0.6g salt). Name cheese on the front and it becomes 400mg (about 1.0g salt). Cut the energy and you cut your salt headroom with it.

Baby food labelling changes that will hit packs first

Artwork has the longest lead time, and 28% of products in the Alba Health analysis had labelling or marketing breaches. The guidelines ask brands to:

• Stop marketing snacks as suitable for 12 months and under. A 7m+ puff needs relabelling, or repositioning as part of a meal.
• Label age in line with introducing solids at around six months.
• Name products honestly, so the name matches the quantity of the main ingredients. There's no percentage threshold, so a "carrot and apple" pouch that's mostly apple is a risk.
• Put feeding instructions on the front of spouted pouches, such as "use a spoon" or "do not suck".
• Remove implied health claims that aren't backed by evidence.

How to get your baby food range ready by February 2027

Five months is tight for a reformulation, and tighter if artwork changes too. A workable order:

1. Put every under-36-month SKU into a category. Borderline products are where you'll lose time, because the guidance doesn't define sweet versus savoury precisely.
2. Recalculate snack sugar as a percentage of energy, and sodium per 100 kcal. Most spec sheets hold neither figure.
3. Flag every ingredient that counts as added sugar, especially juice concentrates listed under fruit.
4. Audit front of pack for age claims, product names and pouch instructions. Brief design now, not after the recipe is signed off.
5. Reformulate what fails, closest to the line first. A melt at 26% energy from sugar is a tweak. One at 76% is a new product.

Thinking of moving a toddler snack out of scope by repositioning it for children over three? Check it against the high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) rules first. A sweet biscuit or cereal bar that escapes these guidelines can land in HFSS categories 4 or 7, which we covered in what is HFSS.

What's confirmed, what's likely, what's unclear

Confirmed: the targets, the scope (up to 36 months, excluding formula and toddler milks) and the end-of-February 2027 deadline.

Likely: a government progress report after February 2027 that shows publicly how far the category has moved.

Unclear: what "additional or alternative measures" would look like, and how strictly monitoring will read the loosely defined parts, such as honest naming and implied health claims.

This post reflects the guidelines as of September 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What are the OHID baby food guidelines?

Voluntary guidelines published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in August 2025 for commercial food and drink aimed at children up to 36 months. They set sugar and salt targets for baby meals, finger foods, snacks and drinks, plus labelling and marketing rules.

When is the deadline for the baby food guidelines?

The end of February 2027, 18 months after publication. Government expects to publish a progress report after that.

Are the baby food guidelines mandatory?

No. They're voluntary, but government has said it will consider additional or alternative measures if businesses don't implement them.

Do the baby food guidelines cover toddler snacks?

Yes. They cover food and drink aimed at children up to 36 months, so toddler snacks labelled 12m+ or 1 to 3 years are in scope. Toddler and growing-up milks are the exception.

Does fruit juice concentrate count as added sugar in baby food?

Yes. The guidelines count sugar, honey, syrups, fruit and vegetable juices and juice concentrates, and lactose and galactose as added sugars. The only exception is a small amount of lemon or lime juice used as a preservative.

Can you market snacks for babies under 12 months?

No. The guidelines ask businesses to stop labelling and marketing snacks, or foods eaten between meals, as suitable for children aged 12 months and under.

How do you calculate the percentage of energy from sugar?

Multiply total sugar per 100g by 4 kcal, then divide by total energy per 100g. A snack with 12g sugar and 400 kcal per 100g gets 12% of its energy from sugar, above the 10% target for savoury and sweet finger foods. The method is set out in Annex 4 of the guidelines.

Reformulating a baby or toddler range before February 2027? Canoli can help you model the changes. Get started free.