Nutri-Mark is Abu Dhabi's front-of-pack nutrition label: a single letter from A to E, each with its own colour, printed on the front of a pack to summarise how nutritious a food or drink is compared with similar products. It was developed by the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (ADQCC, now branded QCC) with the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre (ADPHC), and it is the first scheme of its kind in the region.
For manufacturers, importers and brands selling packaged food in Abu Dhabi, Nutri-Mark raises practical questions. Which products does it cover? How is the grade worked out? Is it mandatory yet? This guide answers each one using ADQCC's official documents and government announcements, and flags where the timeline has changed since launch.
Key Takeaways
- Nutri-Mark is an Abu Dhabi scheme: it was developed by ADQCC and ADPHC, announced at the Abu Dhabi International Food Exhibition (ADIFE) in November 2024, and set out in the Abu Dhabi Guideline ADG-044-2024, which ADQCC approved in March 2025.
- Grades run from A (dark green) to E (dark orange). They are meant for comparing products within the same category, not for labelling foods "good" or "bad".
- The grade is based on the 2023 revision of Nutri-Score. It weighs nutrients to limit (energy, sugars, saturated fat, sodium) against components to encourage (fibre, protein, fruits and vegetables), and must be calculated with ADQCC's official calculation tool.
- The first phase covers five product categories: oils, dairy, beverages, baked goods, and children's food such as cereals and snacks.
- The mandatory date has moved. Launch announcements said labels would be mandatory for those categories from 1 June 2025. That date was postponed to Q4 2025, and government-quoted reporting in 2026 describes the scheme as not yet mandatory. Check QCC for the current position.
What Is Nutri-Mark?
QCC's official Nutri-Mark overview describes it as a summary front-of-pack label. It gives an overall assessment of a product's nutrient composition in simplified form and sits alongside the mandatory nutrition declaration on the back of the pack. It does not replace your nutrition facts table. It condenses that information into one grade a shopper can read at a glance.
The scheme was announced jointly by ADQCC and ADPHC on 26 November 2024 at ADIFE. On 1 March 2025, ADQCC, through the Standard Technical Committee for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, approved the Abu Dhabi guideline for using the label. According to QCC, the guideline was developed with ADPHC and other stakeholders, including the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED), the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA) and the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority (ECA).
Nutri-Mark is an Abu Dhabi government initiative. It is not a federal UAE standard issued by the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology (MoIAT), formerly ESMA, and it is separate from other schemes that sound similar, such as Dubai's school canteen programmes.
The A to E Grading Scale
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Book a callQCC describes a graded scale of five letters and colours. According to QCC, the purpose is to distinguish healthier options from less healthy ones within the same product category, and to help producers see how reformulating a product could move it up a grade.
| Grade | Colour (per QCC) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| A | Dark green | Highest nutritional quality within the category |
| B | Light green | Better than average |
| C | Yellow | Intermediate |
| D | Light orange | Lower nutritional quality |
| E | Dark orange | Lowest nutritional quality within the category |
Some press coverage and ADQCC's March 2025 announcement describe the colours as running "green to red". For packaging artwork, follow QCC's official Nutri-Mark Label and Graphics Guidelines rather than colours seen in news graphics.
How the Nutri-Mark Grade Is Calculated
According to QCC, the Nutri-Mark grading system is based on the 2023 revision of Nutri-Score, the front-of-pack label first used in France in 2017, adapted to the UAE's regulatory and market context. The detailed methodology is set out in ADG-044-2024.
QCC's summary of the calculation groups the inputs into two sets:
- Nutrients to limit: energy, sugars, saturated fat and sodium.
- Nutrients and components to encourage: fibre, protein, and fruits and vegetables.
Combining the two gives one score, and that score sets the letter grade. In the Nutri-Score 2023 method that Nutri-Mark is based on, points are calculated per 100 g or 100 ml of product, and adapted calculations are published for general foods, for fats, oils, nuts and seeds, and for beverages. The exact rules for your product, including thresholds and group-specific adjustments, are in ADG-044-2024. Use those rather than a generic Nutri-Score explainer.
QCC says operators must calculate the score with its official Excel calculation tool. The current tool on QCC's site is dated April 2026. If you score products in your own spreadsheet or a third-party tool, check the results against the official tool before submitting.
Which Products Does Nutri-Mark Cover?
ADQCC's launch announcement says the first phase focuses on five product categories:
- Oils
- Dairy
- Beverages
- Baked goods
- Children's food, which ADQCC says includes cereals and snacks commonly eaten by children
ADQCC also announced a second phase introducing system certification for non-packaged food. At launch, officials said further food items would follow the first phase, and The National reported that the system is intended eventually to cover all food sold in the emirate. No dates for those later phases have been published.
QCC's Nutri-Mark guidance is addressed to food and beverage operators, which it lists as retailers, suppliers, distributors, importers and manufacturers. When the scheme launched, ADQCC officials said manufacturers and local agents of products in scope would be responsible for grading products accurately and producing the front-of-pack labels.
Is Nutri-Mark Mandatory? The Timeline So Far
This is where most online guides are out of date. Nutri-Mark was launched as a mandatory scheme for its first five categories, but the start date has since been postponed. Here is what official announcements and reputable press quoting officials have said:
| Date | Development |
|---|---|
| 26 Nov 2024 | ADQCC and ADPHC announce Nutri-Mark at ADIFE. Officials say labels will be required on the five first-phase categories from 1 June 2025, and The National reports existing goods would have six months to update packaging. |
| 1 Mar 2025 | ADQCC approves the Abu Dhabi guideline for use of the Nutri-Mark label. |
| 30 May 2025 | ADQCC and the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi announce that official implementation, originally scheduled for June 2025, is postponed to Q4 2025 so businesses have time to adapt production and reformulate (WAM). |
| 30 Jan 2026 | The National reports that Nutri-Mark is currently implemented on a voluntary basis, that QCC is focused on awareness and market readiness, and that no date has yet been set for mandatory implementation. |
| Jun 2026 | QCC launches a Nutri-Mark scanning feature in the TAMM app. Gulf News quotes QCC saying the system is not yet mandatory, that labelled products are available through four major retail outlets in Abu Dhabi, and that QCC plans regular random inspections to verify grades. |
As of this update we have found no official announcement of a new mandatory start date. ADQCC has published a Conditions for Use document (QCC-CoU01-01) dated April 2026, and that document governs anyone who uses the mark. Because the rules have changed more than once, confirm the current position directly with QCC at Nutrimark@qcc.gov.ae before making packaging decisions.
When the scheme launched, ADQCC officials said that once the requirement applied, products in scope found on shelves without the label would be withdrawn and retailers fined, and that products showing an inaccurate grade would face action. Expect enforcement details to be confirmed when a mandatory date is set.
Outside Abu Dhabi: in October 2025, the UAE law firm Al Safar and Partners reported that neither Dubai Municipality nor MoIAT had announced Nutri-Mark requirements outside Abu Dhabi. If you sell across the UAE, treat Nutri-Mark as an Abu Dhabi scheme unless a federal or emirate-level authority says otherwise.
How to Obtain the Right to Use Nutri-Mark
QCC's official page on obtaining the right to use the mark sets out three steps that operators must complete before putting Nutri-Mark on a product.
Step 1: Calculate the Score With the Official Tool
Enter your product's nutrition data into QCC's Nutri-Mark calculation tool to get its score and grade. Use the version currently published on QCC's Official Documents and Tools page.
Step 2: Submit Your Data to QCC
Submit the data to QCC through its online registration process. QCC's site has previously described this process as under development, so check the current submission route with QCC if the online option is not available.
Step 3: Apply the Label Using the Official Graphics
Once registration is complete, QCC provides the official graphic files. Apply the mark strictly in line with the Nutri-Mark Label and Graphics Guidelines (the version on QCC's site is dated August 2025).
QCC lists these official documents as the basis of the scheme. Read them before redesigning packaging:
- Abu Dhabi Guideline for the Nutri-mark (ADG-044-2024): scope, methodology and implementation requirements
- Conditions for Use of the Nutri-mark (QCC-CoU01-01): legal and operational conditions for use
- Nutri-mark Questions and Answers
- Nutri-mark Calculation Tool (Excel)
- Nutri-mark Label and Graphics Guidelines
Preparing Your Product Data
A Nutri-Mark grade is only as reliable as the nutrition data behind it, so it pays to get that data in order whether or not a mandatory date has been set. A practical approach:
- Build per-100 g or per-100 ml profiles for every product in the first-phase categories. Include energy, sugars, saturated fat, sodium or salt, fibre and protein.
- Record fruit and vegetable content from your formulation, since it counts as a favourable component in the calculation.
- Check consistency with your back-of-pack declaration. Nutri-Mark summarises the mandatory nutrition declaration, so the two should come from the same data. Our UAE food labeling requirements guide covers the back-of-pack rules.
- Re-score after every formulation change. Changing a supplier, sugar level or oil blend can move a product across a grade boundary.
- Keep an audit trail linking each grade to the recipe version and data used. QCC has said it plans random inspections to verify grades.
- Confirm evidence requirements such as laboratory analysis against ADG-044-2024 and the Conditions for Use, rather than assuming calculated values will be accepted.
For context on other schemes: Nutri-Score, which Nutri-Mark is based on, is voluntary for producers in France and has been recommended by Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. In Saudi Arabia, the SFDA invited manufacturers in 2018 to join a voluntary pledge to use front-of-pack labels with multiple traffic-light colour coding. A 2021 study in Nutrients found that only 80 of 4,335 screened companies had adopted front-of-pack labels by 2020. None of these schemes carries over automatically, so a product sold in several markets may need scoring under each one separately.
Where RecipeBuilder Fits
The hardest part of any Nutri-Mark submission is the nutrition data itself: accurate per-100 g figures for each product, kept up to date as recipes change. RecipeBuilder is built for that data work. It does not issue or calculate the official Nutri-Mark grade. That must come from QCC's official calculation tool and registration process. What it does is give your team a single, version-controlled source for the nutrition figures you enter into the tool and print on the back of the pack.
Get Your Nutrition Data Ready for Nutri-Mark
RecipeBuilder calculates per-100 g nutrition profiles and per-serving values from your recipes using USDA FoodData Central data. It also generates bilingual English/Arabic label content and print-ready packaging artwork, so your back-of-pack declaration and the figures you enter into QCC's Nutri-Mark tool come from the same recipe records. Book a call to see how it fits your labeling workflow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who developed Nutri-Mark?
Nutri-Mark was developed by the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (ADQCC) with the Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre (ADPHC) and announced at the Abu Dhabi International Food Exhibition in November 2024. ADQCC approved the supporting Abu Dhabi guideline in March 2025, and its official documents are published on QCC's Nutri-Mark pages.
Is Nutri-Mark mandatory in Abu Dhabi?
It was announced as mandatory for five first-phase categories from 1 June 2025, but ADQCC and the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi postponed implementation to Q4 2025. Reporting in January and June 2026 that quotes QCC describes the scheme as voluntary for now, with no mandatory date set. Confirm the current status with QCC at Nutrimark@qcc.gov.ae.
Which products are in the first phase of Nutri-Mark?
ADQCC names five first-phase categories: oils, dairy, beverages, baked goods, and children's food including cereals and snacks. A later phase is planned to introduce certification for non-packaged food, and officials have said more categories will follow, but no dates for later phases have been published.
How is a Nutri-Mark grade calculated?
According to QCC, Nutri-Mark is based on the 2023 revision of Nutri-Score. It weighs nutrients to limit (energy, sugars, saturated fat, sodium) against components to encourage (fibre, protein, fruits and vegetables) to produce a grade from A to E. Operators must use QCC's official calculation tool, and the full methodology is set out in guideline ADG-044-2024.