Sugar doesn't always appear as 'sugar' on a food label. Manufacturers use dozens of different names — some obvious, many deliberately obscure. If you don't know what to look for, you could be eating far more sugar than you realise. Here are the names you need to know.
These are the 20 hidden sugar names you're most likely to find on UK food labels.
glucose syrup
Liquid sweetener made from starch
high fructose corn syrup
Corn-derived syrup high in fructose
dextrose
Another name for glucose, from corn
maltodextrin
Starch-derived filler with high glycaemic impact
fructose
Fruit sugar — sweeter than glucose
corn syrup
Sweetener made from corn starch
invert sugar
Liquid sugar that prevents crystallisation
glucose-fructose syrup
Blend of glucose and fructose syrups
maltose
Sugar from starch breakdown (malt sugar)
sucrose
Chemical name for table sugar
barley malt extract
Concentrated malt sweetener
rice syrup
Sweetener made from brown rice starch
agave nectar
Another name for agave syrup
evaporated cane juice
Dehydrated sugar cane juice
fruit juice concentrate
Concentrated fruit sugars used as sweetener
caramel
Heated sugar used for colour and flavour
malt extract
Sweet syrup from malted grain
brown rice syrup
Sweetener from enzymatically treated brown rice
levulose
Old name for fructose
crystalline fructose
Purified fructose in crystal form
The complete list of sugar names that most people don't recognise as sugar.
Names most people recognise as sugar — but they still count towards your daily intake.
Ingredients must be listed in order of weight. By splitting sugar across multiple names — glucose syrup, dextrose, maltodextrin — each individual sugar appears lower on the list. The result: a product that looks less sugary than it actually is.
This is legal and common practice. The only way to catch it is to know the names. That's why tools like our Hidden Sugar Checker exist — to scan ingredient lists and find every sugar alias automatically.
Found these on a label?
Paste any ingredient list and our tool will find every sugar alias — obvious and hidden.
SpikeSaver scans every product for hidden sugars — no label reading needed.
Plus NOVA classification, glucose impact, and keto suitability — all while you browse.
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