Reference amounts

The numbers

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Hard candies and breath mints, 2 g All other candies, 30 g Cookies, 30 g Brownies, 40 g Syrups, 30 mL for all syrups Honey, jams, jellies and the rest, 1 tbsp Beverages, 360 mL Which puts the beverage threshold off our shelf entirely The spread is the thing to notice So read the table before the catalog References

2 g to 360 mL. A factor of a hundred and eighty across one shelf.

Hard candies and breath mints, 2 g

The smallest on the table, which makes 200 percent 4 g. Almost any container holds more than that, so a tin of mints is not a single-serving container.

All other candies, 30 g

Which is the one that reaches gummies. 200 percent is 60 g, and whether a jar holds more than 60 g of gummies depends on the piece.

Cookies, 30 g

Same figure as candies. A single large cookie can exceed the reference amount on its own, which is why the conversion rules go up as well as down.

Brownies, 40 g

Slightly higher, and 200 percent is 80 g. A single tray-cut brownie is often close to that line by itself.

Syrups, 30 mL for all syrups

Quoted as printed, including the "for all syrups". No distinction between a thin and a thick one, which makes the threshold easy to apply.

Honey, jams, jellies and the rest, 1 tbsp

A household measure rather than a metric one, which is how the table expresses several categories. Around 15 mL, so 200 percent is around 30.

Beverages, 360 mL

Carbonated and noncarbonated beverages, wine coolers and water. The largest on this list by an order of magnitude.

Which puts the beverage threshold off our shelf entirely

200 percent of 360 mL is 720. Our largest container is 473. Nothing we stock for this group can be anything but a single-serving container for a beverage.

The spread is the thing to notice

2 g to 360 mL across seven categories a maker might plausibly be working in at once. The threshold is not a property of the container, it is a property of the pairing.

So read the table before the catalog

Find the reference amount for what you are making, double it, and then look at sizes. Doing it the other way round means fitting the product to whatever band the jar landed in.

References

21 CFR 101.12(b), Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed Per Eating Occasion. The amounts that reach this shelf: hard candies and breath mints 2 g; all other candies 30 g; cookies 30 g; brownies 40 g; syrups "30 mL for all syrups"; honey, jams, jellies, fruit butter, molasses, fruit pastes and fruit chutneys 1 tbsp; carbonated and noncarbonated beverages, wine coolers and water 360 mL. law.cornell.edu

21 CFR 101.9(b)(6): "A product that is packaged and sold individually that contains less than 200 percent of the applicable reference amount must be considered to be a single-serving container, and the entire content of the product must be labeled as one serving." The same paragraph permits voluntary dual-column labeling for a product holding 150 to 200 percent of the reference amount. law.cornell.edu

Written from 21 CFR 101.9 and 101.12 and from the catalog as it stood on 19 October 2026. The serving-size rules quoted here are the federal food-labeling rules; dose caps, potency labeling, child-resistant packaging and exit packaging for a licensed cannabis edible are set state by state and nothing here describes them. Four of the reference amounts that matter on this shelf are expressed in grams and our capacity field is in millilitres, so for gummies, chocolate and baked goods our data cannot tell you which band a jar falls in.