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I am looking at the nutritional label for Mariani Dried Cranberries. If I'm reading the label correctly, the serving size is 40g, 26g of which are added sugar (yep, 2/3 of this product is sugar!). According to FDA regulations, since sugar is the ingredient of the largest amount, shouldn't it be listed first in the ingredients list?

Nutrition Facts label for Mariani Dried Cranberries

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    It may be that the ingredients are listed in order of mass before processing, and then the cranberries reduce in mass subsequently. The dried snack sausage brand Pepperami infamously list something like "104% pork" for similar reasons.
    – dbmag9
    Dec 29, 2022 at 15:55
  • The US labelling regs do seem designed for the companies to just lie through their teeth. Picking a brand & retailer literally at random using google in the UK, the sweetener is listed first - tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/271074203
    – Tetsujin
    Dec 29, 2022 at 19:49

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The ingredients reference the, well, ingredients. They are listed in the order of what goes into the product. So, they start out with more cranberries than sugar.

The nutrition information references the finished product. The now-dried cranberry matter contained in the product may well be less (by weight) than the added sugar. This doesn't contradict the statement that the weight of the fresh cranberries which went in as an ingredient was larger than the weight of the sugar as an ingredient, before starting the processing of the food (in this case, drying). This is a general statement about reading these labels - the ratio of ingredients doesn't have to be the same as the ratio of "components" of the finished product.

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