Per pack, per 100 g, per serving: reading nutrition numbers

Which is the lighter lunch, the ready meal labelled 139 kcal or the one labelled 395 kcal? The first, by the look of it, yet it is the bigger meal: 139 kcal is its energy per 100 g, and the whole 350 g pack holds 485 kcal. Both meals are made up for this article; their full figures are further down. Before comparing two numbers, check what each is counted per.

Three bases, three questions

Per 100 g (or 100 ml) is the same amount for every product, so it is the column for comparing similar foods. It also reads like a percentage: 20 g of fat per 100 g means the food is 20% fat (FSANZ).

Per serving is the amount the producer suggests you eat at one time. The food business sets it, FSANZ notes, and it varies between products, so two "servings" are not always the same size.

Per pack is everything in the container: for a single-portion ready meal, usually exactly what you eat.

Thailand's Ministry of Public Health Notification No. 445 (B.E. 2566) replaces the old "serving size / servings per container" wording with "eat … times per …" (กินได้ ... ครั้ง ต่อ ...). It applies from 2 July 2024, and old-format labels are allowed until 1 July 2027. Where the standard panel is required, it lists nine items: energy, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, protein, carbohydrate, total sugars, sodium and potassium (Thai FDA). A snack bag marked "eat 3 times per bag" therefore gives you three times the serving figures if you finish it.

kcal, kJ and where the calories come from

"Calories" on a label means kilocalories; some labels show kilojoules instead. 1 kcal = 4.184 kJ, and 1 kJ = 0.239 kcal (FAO), so a 500 kcal meal is about 2,090 kJ: a number four times bigger for the same energy.

FAO's general energy factors, used on many labels, explain why fat moves the total so much:

So protein × 4 + carbohydrate × 4 + fat × 9 should land close to the kcal figure. It rarely matches exactly, because of rounding and because some components, such as fibre, are counted differently.

For lunch, read protein per pack: it tells you whether the meal will keep you full (comparing protein per portion). Carbohydrate covers starch and sugars, so rice and noodle dishes naturally sit higher than fish with vegetables.

The two meals, in full

Illustrative example, not Plate Mate data.

Per 100 g, Meal B is denser in energy, protein and fat. Per pack, Meal A brings more energy and more protein because it is bigger, and still less fat. Energy density is a per-100 g question; "which lunch gives me more protein and less fat?" is a per-pack one. Either way, compare per pack with per pack and per 100 g with per 100 g.

One more trap: per-100 g figures depend on what was weighed. Dry and cooked rice, or raw and cooked chicken, differ a lot because cooking adds or removes water. Ready-meal figures describe the finished dish, a distinction that matters when you track food at home (raw vs cooked weight).

Our dish cards count per pack

The current menu is on our website; the assortment varies by machine. Each dish on the menu and in this blog shows calories, protein, fat and carbohydrate per pack, the amount you actually eat.

Chicken Meatballs in Mushroom Sauce with Rice

499 kcal · P 47 · F 11 · C 53

Per pack. Calculated from the recipe, not measured in a lab.

See the full menu →

Calories and macros on our packs are calculated from the recipe (ingredients and weights), not measured in a laboratory: good enough to choose and compare dishes by, though a given pack may not match them to the gram (how recipe nutrition is calculated). The rest of the label, from the name to the date, is in how to read a ready meal pack.