USDA FoodData Central Nutrient Lookup Guide

How US product developers look up USDA FoodData Central composition, branded Nutrition Facts values, and UPC records, including what a missing nutrient is not.

A US launch needs nutrient numbers you can point at. US Nutrient Composition Lookup reads USDA FoodData Central live and reports what that register holds. It does not evaluate a Nutrition Facts panel, compute Daily Value percentages, or apply FDA rounding under 21 CFR 101.

Nine other fmcg.network capabilities read EU registers. This one reads the US federal food composition register. Values are US register values, not an EU nutrition declaration.

Three questions, three tools

  1. What is the composition of this ingredient, per 100 g, before laboratory work is commissioned? Use find_food to resolve an fdcId, then get_composition.
  2. What did a comparable US product declare on its pack, at what serving size, with what ingredient statement? Use get_label_panel on a Branded record only.
  3. What does the register hold under this UPC? Use find_food with the GTIN, then the tool that matches the question above.

Do not guess an fdcId. A query for a generic ingredient returns branded packs of it. A query for a brand returns that brand’s catalogue. Report total_in_register with the page, because three candidates out of a six-figure hit list are not “what the register holds”.

The four data types are different in kind

  • Foundation: laboratory analyses with sample counts and ranges.
  • SR Legacy: historical reference tables, frozen in 2018.
  • Branded: manufacturer submissions. USDA does not verify them.
  • Survey (FNDDS): modelled for dietary intake studies.

Treating a manufacturer submission as a federal analytical measurement overstates it. The dataType and the record’s publication date must travel with any number you quote. A Branded record is a label as submitted on that date, not the pack on shelf now. Discontinued products can remain in the register.

Per 100 g versus per serving

get_composition returns nutrients per 100 g or 100 ml. get_label_panel returns declared values per serving, at the submitter’s serving size. Mixing those scales in one sentence is the easiest way to be wrong by a large factor. The same almond flour record can show about 7 g fat per 13 g serving and about 53.8 g fat per 100 g. Both can be consistent. Neither may be quoted as the other.

A nutrient that is absent was not analysed or not declared. It is not zero, and it is not an all clear. Foundation foods routinely omit total sugars or saturated fat. Some records report energy twice, under different Atwater factors. Quoting a single unlabelled calorie figure hides that the register gave two.

The Branded Foods dataset is a voluntary manufacturer programme. A product absent from it may never have been submitted. It is not a register of all US packaged foods.

Worked queries

Find Foundation records for almond flour in USDA FoodData Central.

The assistant calls us_nutrient_lookup__find_food with dataType: Foundation and returns register names plus fdcId values such as 2261420 “Flour, almond”.

Get the per 100 g composition for fdcId 2261420.

get_composition returns the analytical nutrients for that Foundation record. Total sugars and saturated fat may be absent on that record. Energy may appear twice.

Look up UPC 041303062623 and show the declared Nutrition Facts panel.

find_food resolves the UPC. get_label_panel returns what that manufacturer submitted per serving, with the ingredient statement and publication date, not verified by USDA.

Install fmcg.network in Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, or Cursor, then open US Nutrient Composition Lookup.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is FoodData Central a complete catalog of US packaged food? No. Branded Foods is voluntary. Silence can mean “never submitted”.

Does this produce a compliant Nutrition Facts panel? No. Rounding, Daily Values, and RACC serving sizes are a separate regulatory step. This capability reports register numbers only.

Can I treat a missing sugar value as zero? No. Absent means not analysed or not declared.

Are branded values USDA measurements? No. They are manufacturer submissions that USDA does not verify.

Does this output an EU nutrition declaration? No. It reads USDA FoodData Central only.