How much fruit does federal law require in jam and jelly?

Jam and preserves sold under that name must start from at least 45 parts fruit to every 55 parts sugar by weight, and at least 47 parts fruit when every fruit in the jar is on the federal Group I list [1]. Jelly has the same 45 to 55 floor, measured on the juice [2]. Fruit butter is richer in fruit: at least 5 parts fruit to 2 parts sweetener [3]. These are minimums for fruit, which makes them maximums for sugar. This page gives the full Group I and Group II lists as the regulation writes them, the rules for mixed fruit, and worked examples you can copy for your own batch sheet.

What "parts by weight" means in practice

The ratio describes the mixture that goes into the pan, before cooking. "Parts" means any unit of weight you like, as long as both sides use the same one: 47 pounds of strawberries to 55 pounds of sugar, or 470 grams to 550 grams. Volume does not work, because a cup of sugar and a cup of crushed fruit weigh very different amounts. Penn State's commercial primer tells producers to weigh ingredients rather than measure them by volume [4].

Three details in the regulation change how you count:

• Fruit weight is the prepared fruit. For fruit with pits, seeds, skins or cores removed, the weight is "the weight of such fruit, exclusive of the weight of all such substances removed therefrom" [1]. Weigh peaches after pitting and peeling, not as they came out of the box.
• Added water and sugar are not fruit. The fruit weight excludes "any sugar, water, or other substance added for any processing" [1]. Frozen fruit packed in sugar has to be counted as part fruit, part sugar.
• Concentrated fruit counts as the fresh fruit it came from. For a concentrate, the weight is "the weight of the properly prepared fresh fruit used to produce" it [1]. The sweetener side counts solids only: "The weight of any optional saccharine ingredient means the weight of the solids of such ingredient" [1]. Granulated sugar is essentially all solids; a syrup counts only for the sugar dissolved in it.

Penn State adds one more rule of thumb for producers: any previously sweetened ingredient counts toward total sugar [4].

The two ratios for jam and preserves

The regulation sets the floor in paragraph (d)(1) of 21 CFR 150.160. Quoted in full, the mixture must contain not less than:

"(i) In the case of a fruit ingredient consisting of a Group I fruit or a permitted combination exclusively of Group I fruits, 47 parts by weight of the fruit ingredient to each 55 parts by weight of the saccharine ingredient; and (ii) in all other cases, 45 parts by weight of the fruit ingredient to each 55 parts by weight of the saccharine ingredient." [1]

Read the second clause carefully. "All other cases" covers Group II fruits on their own and every blend that includes even one Group II fruit. A strawberry and peach jam is held to 45, not 47.

Group I and Group II, as the regulation lists them

These lists are quoted from 21 CFR 150.160(b)(1), including the regulation's own spellings and exclusions [1].

Group I (47 parts fruit to 55 parts sugar): "Blackberry (other than dewberry), Black raspberry, Blueberry, Boysenberry, Cherry, Crabapple, Dewberry (other than boysenberry, loganberry, and youngberry) Elderberry, Grape, Grapefruit, Huckleberry, Loganberry, Orange, Pineapple, Raspberry, red raspberry, Rhubarb, Strawberry, Tangerine, Tomato, Yellow tomato, Youngberry"

Group II (45 parts fruit to 55 parts sugar): "Apricot, Cranberry, Damson, damson plum, Fig, Gooseberry, Greengage, greengage plum, Guava, Nectarine, Peach, Pear, Plum (other than greengage plum and damson plum), Quince, Red currant, currant (other than black currant)"

Three things surprise people about these lists:

1. Citrus is Group I. Orange, grapefruit and tangerine are on the Group I list. Penn State's primer lists citrus among the Group II fruits [4]. On this point the extension sheet is wrong and the regulation governs; this book follows the regulation. A citrus product sold as "jam" is held to 47:55. Marmalade has no federal standard at all, so the ratio does not attach to it [4].
2. Apple is on neither list. Apple appears in the jam standard only in combinations, with "the weight of apple is not more than one-half" of the fruit [1]. A jam that is all apple has no standard; apple jelly and apple butter do [2][3].
3. Some common jam fruits are missing. Mango, kiwi, passion fruit, black currant, mulberry and many others appear on neither list. Penn State treats jams from fruits outside both groups as nonstandard products that must be labeled so they do not claim to be a standard jam [4]. The naming choices are on what you can call your jam.

Tomato and yellow tomato being Group I does not make tomato jam a safe home-canning project; tomatoes are a low-acid concern covered on fruits that need extra acid. The legal ratio and the safety question are separate tests, and a product has to pass both.

Mixed-fruit jam: how many fruits and how much of each

The regulation allows combinations of two to five fruits, with conditions [1]:

So a five-fruit "summer berry jam" needs each berry to be at least 20 percent of the fruit weight. A jam that is 85 percent strawberry with a few blueberries for color is still sold as a mixed-fruit jam only if blueberry reaches a fifth; otherwise, name it for the fruit that dominates and list blueberry in the ingredients. The name lists fruits "in the order of predominance, if any, of the weights of such fruits in the combination" [1].

Jelly: 45 to 55, counted on the juice

Fruit jelly under 21 CFR 150.140 must contain "not less than 45 parts by weight of the fruit juice ingredients" to "each 55 parts by weight of saccharine ingredient" [2]. There is no 47-part group for jelly. The jelly standard has its own fruit list, 28 fruits from apple to youngberry, and it includes some that the jam list does not, such as apple, pomegranate and prickly pear [2]. Combinations of two to five juices are allowed, each at least one-fifth of the combined weight [2].

The juice weight is not what the scale says. Paragraph (d)(2) of the jelly standard computes it in steps: take the juice's percent soluble solids, multiply by the weight of juice, divide by 100, subtract any added sugar or other added solids, and multiply what is left by the factor the regulation sets for that fruit [2]. The factors differ widely: 7.5 for apple, 6.5 for crabapple, 7.0 for grape, 12.5 for strawberry [2]. So 4 pounds of grape juice reading 16 percent soluble solids counts as 16 × 4 ÷ 100 × 7.0 = 4.48 pounds of juice ingredient, and a sweeter or more dilute juice counts for more or less than its weight. The same steps count concentrate as the juice it was made from. Read the soluble solids with a refractometer before you add sugar, and run the arithmetic for each new juice source.

A fruit jelly from a fruit not on the 150.140 list, such as huckleberry or elderberry, falls under FDA's policy for nonstandardized jellies, which expects the same 45 parts fruit to 55 parts sugar and 65 percent soluble solids [5]. The one listed exception in that policy is black currant, "ordinarily" made at 27 parts fruit to 55 parts sugar because of its high pectin [5].

Fruit butter: five parts fruit to two

Fruit butter is the one standard where the fruit outweighs the sugar. The mixture "shall contain not less than five parts by weight of the fruit ingredient" to each two parts of sweetener, and the finished butter must reach at least 43 percent soluble solids [3]. Only eight fruits qualify: apple, apricot, grape, peach, pear, plum, prune and quince [3]. Pumpkin is not one of them, and pumpkin butter has no tested home canning process at all; see pumpkin butter and other low-acid spreads.

Worked examples

The arithmetic has two forms. Use the first when you know your fruit weight, the second when you are planning a batch of a set size.

Method 1: maximum sugar from the fruit you have. Multiply the fruit weight by 55/47 for Group I or 55/45 for everything else.

Method 2: fruit and sugar shares of a planned batch. For Group I, fruit is 47/102 (0.461) and sugar 55/102 (0.539) of the combined weight. For Group II and blends, fruit is 0.450 and sugar 0.550 [4].

The figures in the first four lines are Penn State's [4]; the last three apply the same regulation arithmetic to home-sized batches and are not recipes. A tested recipe tells you how much sugar to use for a good set. This calculation only tells you whether that recipe can legally be called jam. Most full-sugar tested recipes sit comfortably inside the limit; the check matters most when you scale a recipe, swap fruits or add sugared ingredients. If the arithmetic shows your recipe uses more sugar than the floor allows, the product is not standard jam under that name, even if it sets beautifully.

Where the fruit floor ends and the 65 percent test begins

Meeting the ratio is half the standard. The finished jam must also reach at least 65 percent soluble solids, measured by refractometer [1]. A recipe can pass the ratio and fail the reading if it is undercooked, or pass the reading and fail the ratio if it carries too much sugar. The reading, the official method and how to check your own batches are on what 65 percent soluble solids means, and the batch and yield calculator runs the sugar limit for you.

References

1. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 21 CFR 150.160, Fruit preserves and jams, paragraphs (b) and (d) (current text, last amended 63 FR 14035, March 24, 1998), accessed October 2026. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/150.160
2. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 21 CFR 150.140, Fruit jelly (current text), accessed October 2026. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/150.140
3. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 21 CFR 150.110, Fruit butter (current text), accessed October 2026. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/150.110
4. Penn State Extension (L. LaBorde), Food for Profit: Commercial Production of Jams, Jellies, and Fruit Butters, updated May 24, 2024. https://extension.psu.edu/food-for-profit-commercial-production-of-jams-jellies-and-fruit-butters
5. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, CPG Sec. 550.475 Jellies, Nonstandardized, revised May 2005, updated November 29, 2005. https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/cpg-sec-550475-jellies-nonstandardized