How the Sugar Penalty Is Calculated on Your Product Score

Source: The WISEcode Standard v1.0, Sections 3.1.1, 5.4 (Added Sugar Penalty), and 6.

The short answer

The Wc-UPF score isn't just about which ingredients are in a product — it also reflects how much of the product's energy comes from added sugar. The Standard adds points to a product's score based on a published penalty table.

What "Added Sugar Load" means

Per Section 3.1.1, Added Sugar Load is the percentage of total calories in a finished product that come from added sugars. Naturally occurring sugars (like the sugar already in plain fruit or milk) are not counted here — only sugars that were added during formulation.

The math

The Standard defines the calculation explicitly:

Let kcal_added_sugars = calories from added sugars per serving.
Let kcal_total = total calories per serving.
Then: % energy from added sugar = (kcal_added_sugars ÷ kcal_total) × 100

The Sugar Penalty Table (Section 5.4)

Once you know the percentage, the penalty is assigned from this table:

% of energy from added sugar	Sugar Penalty (P_sugar)
Less than 20%	0
20% to 29%	1
30% to 39%	2
40% to 49%	3
50% to 59%	4
60% to 69%	5
70% to 79%	6
80% or more	7

The maximum sugar penalty is 7 points.

How the penalty fits into the score

Per Section 6.1, the formula is:

Wc-UPF_weighted = Σ (N_i × (i − 1)) + P_sugar

In plain English: add up the ingredient weights (Levels 2, 3, and 4 contribute weights of 1, 2, and 3), then add the sugar penalty. If any Level 4 / UIC ingredient is present, an additional +16 is applied (Section 6.3).

A quick example

A product whose calories are 32% from added sugar receives a sugar penalty of 2 (the 30%–39% band). If the ingredient weights sum to 8 and no UIC is present, the final score is 8 + 2 = 10 — landing in the Moderate tier.

Why this matters

Two products can have the same ingredient list and still score differently if one is sweeter. The Sugar Penalty makes the score sensitive to how much added sugar is actually doing the work in the formulation.