How to Buy Jam: The Label, Line by Line
The word jam is regulated on both sides of the Atlantic, and the two laws disagree about almost everything but the pectin. An American jar of preserves must finish at 65 percent soluble solids or it may not use the name, and nothing on the label has to say how much fruit went in. A French jar must print the fruit in grams per hundred, may stop at 55 percent soluble solids, and since June 2026 must be made with at least 450 grams of fruit per kilo to call itself confiture at all. Between the two sit six words that look alike and are not: preserves, extra, conserve, spread, marmalade, fruit butter. This is the jar read from the name at the top to the sum at the register, ending with which jar to buy for which plate. The jam, preserves, marmalade and fruit butter guide covers what the foods are, and the jam and preserves complete guide covers storage after opening. This page is the moment of purchase, in the same series as the caper buying guide.
The name
On a jam jar the name is a legal category before it is a description. In the United States, the standard of identity treats preserve and jam as the same food under two names: fruit, a sweetener, optional pectin and acid, cooked until the soluble solids reach 65 percent. Jelly has its own standard on the same pattern, made from fruit juice at 45 parts juice to 55 parts sweetener. Fruit butter is the outlier, five parts fruit to two parts sweetener and only 43 percent soluble solids, the highest ratio of fruit to sweetener among the American standards for jams, jellies and fruit butters, and it is limited to eight fruits: apple, apricot, grape, peach, pear, plum, prune and quince. Marmalade has no federal standard at all. Neither does fruit spread, and that absence is the point. A product made from a fruit outside the two permitted groups, or finished below 65 percent, may not be called a standard jam or preserves and must be informatively labeled; fruit spread is the example Penn State Extension gives. On an American jar, fruit spread is the word for a maker who stepped outside the standard.
In the European Union the directive on jams draws the lines elsewhere. Jam is sugars with the pulp and or purée of one or more fruits. Extra jam is sugars with unconcentrated pulp, with narrow exceptions for a few berries that may be sieved. The word extra promises fruit that may be cut or crushed but not reduced to a purée, and the directive excludes apples, pears, clingstone plums, melons, watermelons, grapes, pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes from any extra mixture. Jelly and extra jelly are the same pair made from juice. Marmalade was reserved for citrus and has been renamed citrus marmalade by the 2024 amendment, which also lets member states where consumers use marmalade as a synonym for jam allow the plain word for non-citrus jams. Sweetened chestnut purée, the French crème de marrons, has its own entry at 380 grams of chestnut purée per kilo. Conserve appears nowhere in the directive and carries no legal weight. And the directive counts tomatoes, rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and watermelons as fruit, which is why a French carrot or sweet-potato confiture is a jam, while an American one falls outside the two fruit groups and must carry another name.
| Word on the jar | United States | European Union |
|---|---|---|
| Jam, preserves | One standard, two names; 65 percent soluble solids | Jam; preserves has no legal meaning |
| Extra jam, confiture extra | No meaning | Unconcentrated fruit pulp, with a few berries that may be sieved; at least 500 g per kilo since June 2026 |
| Jelly | Its own standard: fruit juice, 45 to 55, 65 percent | Juice; jelly and extra jelly mirror jam and extra jam |
| Marmalade | No federal standard | Citrus marmalade, at least 200 g citrus per kilo with 75 g from the flesh; member states may allow marmalade for non-citrus jam |
| Fruit butter | Five parts fruit to two parts sweetener, 43 percent; eight fruits | No entry in the directive |
| Fruit spread | An informative name for a product outside the standard | No entry |
| Conserve | No legal meaning | No legal meaning |
| Chestnut spread, crème de marrons | No standard | Sweetened chestnut purée, at least 380 g chestnut purée per kilo |
The fruit line
This is the line that separates a European jar from an American one. A European jar must state, in the words of the directive, that it was prepared with so many grams of fruit per 100 grams of finished product. The floors under that line were raised by the 2024 amendment, which applies from 14 June 2026: jam went from 350 to 450 grams of fruit per kilo and extra jam from 450 to 500, with lower floors for some fruits, among them passion fruit at 80 grams and ginger at 180 for jam. The stated purpose was to encourage the reformulation of high-sugar foods. France adopted the 450 and 500 figures by a decree of April 2026 that applies from the same June date. So a jar that says confiture extra and préparée avec 55 g de fruits pour 100 g has made two checkable claims: unconcentrated fruit pulp, and 55 grams of fruit used for every 100 grams of finished jam.
An American jar makes neither. The standard sets the fruit in ratio to the sweetener at the kettle, at least 47 parts fruit to 55 parts sweetener for the first group of fruits, which takes in strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, grapes and oranges, and at least 45 to 55 for the second group, the apricots, peaches, figs, plums and quinces. Nothing requires the finished share to be printed. An American jar's silence is not a low number. It is no number at all. A small American maker who runs well above the floor and a supermarket line that runs the legal minimum look identical on the front, and the clearest line that tells them apart is the order of the ingredients, which is the next section.
The sugar line, and why sugar comes first
Jam is a gel, and a gel needs four things in proportion: fruit, pectin, acid and sugar. The sugar helps the gel form and acts as a preservative. The American floor is 65 percent soluble solids, the European directive's is 60, and the French decree sets 55.
Now the arithmetic behind the ingredient list. Ingredients are listed in descending order of weight as used, on both sides of the Atlantic, and fruit brings some sugar of its own. Take a strawberry at roughly eight parts soluble solids in a hundred, a working figure for the sum rather than a measured one. To finish a kilo of jam at 60 percent solids from 500 grams of fruit, the fruit contributes about 40 grams of solids and the maker adds about 560 grams of sugar. Sugar therefore outweighs fruit at the kettle and lists first, on a jar that meets the new extra jam floor. On that working figure, fruit overtakes sugar only when the fruit share passes about 55 percent under the European floor and about 60 percent under the American one. A list that reads sugar, strawberries is not a confession. It is what the law's own floors produce. A list that reads strawberries, sugar is the sign of a maker running above the floor, and on an American jar, which prints no fruit figure, it is the clearest such sign.
The sugar's name matters less than its share. The American standard permits any nutritive carbohydrate sweetener, which admits corn syrup and glucose syrup alongside cane sugar, and the European directive lets honey replace sugars in whole or in part. A jar sweetened with honey is a legitimate jam, and the honey guide covers the honey itself.
The phrase sweetened only with fruit juice needs a second read. Grape and apple juice concentrate are sugars in a different bottle, and the federal rule on the phrase no added sugar bars the claim on any product that contains concentrated fruit juice. But the nutrition panel is a separate rule, and it carves out juice concentrates used to formulate the fruit component of jams, jellies, preserves and fruit spreads from the added sugars line. A jar whose fruit component is built on juice concentrate may therefore show a low or zero figure for added sugars even though the concentrate contributes sugar. Read total sugars, not added sugars, and read the concentrate's position in the list.
Low-sugar spreads may gel with gelatin or a modified pectin instead of the standard's sugar, and they keep on different terms. The home canning guidance for gelatin spreads is refrigeration and use within four weeks; read a commercial low-sugar jar's storage line for the same reason.
| Floor | Soluble solids | Fruit share where fruit overtakes sugar on the list (fruit at about 8 percent solids) |
|---|---|---|
| United States, preserves or jam | 65 percent minimum | About 60 percent fruit |
| European Union, jam or extra jam | 60 percent minimum | About 55 percent fruit |
| France, confiture or confiture extra | 55 percent minimum | About 51 percent fruit |
Pectin, acid and the rest of the list
After fruit and sugar come the lines that make the gel work. Pectin is the gelling fiber the fruit brings or the maker adds; the American standard lets it be added to make up for a shortfall in the fruit's own, and the European directive lists it among the permitted additions, so its presence is not a fault. Strawberries, raspberries, peaches and apricots are low in natural pectin or acid and always need one or both added, while currants, quinces, sour apples and lemons usually have enough of their own if not overripe. Lemon juice and citric acid are the acids, and they are there for the gel as much as the flavor, since jams and jellies set best in a narrow band of acidity around pH 2.8 to 3.3. On a European jar, sulphur dioxide above 10 milligrams per kilo must be declared. The American standard lists preservatives among its optional ingredients, so a preservative on an American list is within the standard. None of these is a reason to put a jar back.
The American grade
There is an American grade, and the standard of identity does not require the label to carry it. The Department of Agriculture's standard for fruit preserves scores a jar on four factors, color, consistency, absence of defects and flavor, and sets U.S. Grade A at 85 points or more, U.S. Grade B at 70, and Substandard below that. A retail jar that says Grade A has volunteered it. Premium, gourmet, artisan and small batch sound like grades and are not terms in the grade standard or the standard of identity. The European directive sets no grade. The word extra is the nearest thing, and it is a composition rule, not a score.
The origin line
Product of France is where the kettle stood. The fruit is a separate question, and since April 2020 the European rule on primary ingredients has answered part of it. Where a label gives the food's origin and the main ingredient, the one usually associated with the name or making up more than half, comes from somewhere else, the label must say so, either by naming the ingredient's origin or by stating that it does not come from the country on the front. A French jar that says fabriqué en France above Moroccan strawberries must now say the strawberries are not French. A jar that names the fruit's own place, Willamette raspberries, Corsican clementines with their protected indication, has volunteered a line that can be checked, and volunteered lines are the ones worth paying for. The American standard of identity asks for no fruit origin, so an American jar's fruit origin is a courtesy when it appears.
The weight and the sum
Jar sizes differ, so the fair comparison is price per gram, and the comparison a cook cares about is price per serving. The federal reference amount for jams and jellies is one tablespoon. The sums below take a tablespoon of jam as about 20 grams, a working conversion rather than a figure from the rule. Where the jar prints a fruit figure, a second sum is possible, price per gram of fruit. The table uses illustrative prices and weights, not shop prices.
| Format | Net weight | Illustrative price | Per gram of jam | Declared fruit | Per gram of fruit | Per tablespoon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket strawberry preserves | 510 g | $3.50 | 0.7 cents | Not printed | Unknown | 14 cents |
| French confiture extra, 55 g fruit per 100 g | 240 g | $9.00 | 3.8 cents | 132 g | 6.8 cents | 75 cents |
| Small-batch American jam | 280 g | $12.00 | 4.3 cents | Not printed | Unknown | 86 cents |
| Italian citrus marmalade, 45 g fruit per 100 g | 400 g | $16.00 | 4.0 cents | 180 g | 8.9 cents | 80 cents |
Two things fall out. The French jar costs more than five times the supermarket jar per gram, and the difference per tablespoon, at these illustrative prices, is 61 cents, which is the figure that matters. And on the American small-batch jar the per-gram-of-fruit sum cannot be done, because the American standard does not ask any maker to print a fruit figure. That is not a verdict on the maker. It is a reason to read the order of the ingredients on the back, where a list that begins with the fruit is the American jar's clearest way of saying what the French jar says in numbers.
The words that are law and the words that are not
| Word on the jar | Status | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Preserves, jam (US) | Real | The standard: 65 percent solids, the fruit in ratio at the kettle |
| Extra, confiture extra (EU) | Real | Unconcentrated pulp, with a few berries that may be sieved; at least half fruit by input |
| Prepared with X g of fruit per 100 g | Real, and mandatory in Europe | The fruit used per 100 g of jam; the line the American jar never has to print |
| Fruit spread (US) | Real, by omission | Outside the standard: a fruit outside the two groups, or below 65 percent soluble solids |
| Fruit butter (US) | Real | Five to two, the highest fruit-to-sweetener ratio among the American standards |
| Citrus marmalade (EU) | Real | Citrus, with a floor for the whole fruit and a separate floor for the flesh |
| Strawberries, sugar (fruit listed first) | Real | Fruit share above roughly 51 to 60 percent, depending on the floor, on the 8 percent working figure |
| Sugar, strawberries (sugar listed first) | Real, and not a fault | What a jar at the legal floor produces |
| U.S. Grade A | Real, voluntary on the label | 85 points on color, consistency, defects and flavor |
| Willamette, Corse IGP | Real when a place is printed | A checkable fruit origin, volunteered |
| Product of France | Processing country | Where it was cooked; the fruit may be elsewhere, and the label must now say if it is |
| Sweetened only with fruit juice | Check the panel | Concentrate is sugars; read total sugars, not added sugars |
| No added sugar | Regulated claim | Barred where concentrated fruit juice is an ingredient |
| Low sugar, reduced sugar | Regulated claim; may be a different gel | Read the storage line |
| Conserve, preserve (EU), homestyle | Unregulated | No legal meaning |
| Premium, gourmet, artisan, small batch | Unregulated | Not grade terms and not a fruit share |
The jars beside the jam
Four kinds of sweet jar look like jam and follow other rules. A curd is fruit juice cooked with eggs, butter and sugar; the home canning recipe for lemon curd runs to seven yolks and four whole eggs against a cup of juice, and a curd's storage line is its own and not a jam's. A salted-butter caramel spread has no fruit in it at all, and the Brittany salted-butter caramel and sardines guide tells its history. A chestnut spread is the directive's sweetened chestnut purée, with a floor of 380 grams of chestnut purée per kilo. And a tea jelly or a coconut kaya is a sweet spread with no fruit standard behind it, to be read by its ingredients alone.
Which jar for which plate
For toast, where the fruit is the point and the jar will be finished in a month, buy a European jam that states a high fruit share. Olbia en Provence Willamette raspberry jam (shop Olbia en Provence Willamette raspberry jam) and Olbia en Provence wild blueberry jam (shop Olbia en Provence wild blueberry jam) are French 230 gram jars made, the producer says, with at least 65 percent fruit pulp. They name the raspberry's variety and the blueberry's wild origin on the front, and Olbia en Provence Corsican clementine jam (shop Olbia en Provence Corsican clementine jam) names the clementine's protected indication, Corse IGP. Confiture Parisienne raspberry violet jam (shop Confiture Parisienne raspberry violet jam), which its maker says is made with much more fruit than sugar, sets the raspberry beside violet.
For the American idiom, Brins strawberry lemongrass spread preserve (shop Brins strawberry lemongrass spread preserve) is a small-batch jar whose list begins with strawberries. Roots Kitchen Cannery strawberry lemon jam (shop Roots Kitchen Cannery strawberry lemon jam) pairs the strawberry with lemon. Sqirl organic boysenberry fruit spread (shop Sqirl organic boysenberry fruit spread) wears the words fruit spread on the front, an American name for a jar made outside the standard. The peanut butter and jelly guide is where a jar like that goes to work.
For the cheese board, buy a jar built to sit beside salt and fat rather than butter. McEvoy Ranch savory fig jam (shop McEvoy Ranch savory fig jam) is one, and the cheese course accompaniments guide covers the pairings. For marmalade, where the peel is the point, the Sicilian estate in the Marchesi di San Giuliano producer guide makes citrus marmalades, by its own account from its own island fruit, peel and all, for toast, for yogurt or for a place beside aged cheese. Yakami Orchards yuzu marmalade (shop Yakami Orchards yuzu marmalade) is made from the Japanese citrus in the yuzu guide, and the marmalade complete guide covers the cuts of peel. The first jam recipe guide is where the arithmetic on this page turns into a kettle.
Sources & Further Reading
- 21 CFR 150.160, Fruit preserves and jams: standard of identity (Group I at not less than 47 parts fruit to 55 parts saccharine ingredient, Group II at 45 to 55; soluble solids not less than 65 percent; preserve and jam as interchangeable names; optional ingredients)
- 21 CFR 150.110, Fruit butter (five parts fruit to two parts sweetener; 43 percent soluble solids; the permitted fruits)
- 21 CFR 150.140, Fruit jelly (45 parts juice to 55 parts sweetener; 65 percent soluble solids)
- eCFR, 21 CFR Part 150, Fruit Butters, Jellies, Preserves, and Related Products (the full list of standardized products; no standard for marmalade or fruit spread)
- Penn State Extension: Commercial Production of Jams, Jellies, and Fruit Butters (informative names such as fruit spread for products outside the standard; pH 2.8 to 3.3)
- USDA Agricultural Marketing Service: United States Standards for Grades of Fruit Preserves (Jams) (Grade A at 85 points, Grade B at 70; color, consistency, absence of defects, flavor)
- 21 CFR 101.4, Food; designation of ingredients (descending order of predominance by weight)
- 21 CFR 101.60(c)(2), conditions for the claim no added sugar (barred where the product contains concentrated fruit juice)
- 21 CFR 101.9(c)(6)(iii), the definition of added sugars and the carve-out for juice concentrates used as the fruit component of jams, jellies, preserves and fruit spreads
- 21 CFR 101.12, reference amounts customarily consumed (jams and jellies at one tablespoon)
- Council Directive 2001/113/EC relating to fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée (definitions of jam and extra jam; the sieved-berry exceptions; marmalade at 200 g citrus with 75 g endocarp; chestnut purée at 380 g; 60 percent soluble dry matter; fruits excluded from extra mixtures; the prepared with g of fruit per 100 g line; honey as a replacement for sugars; the fruit list including tomatoes, rhubarb and carrots; sulphur dioxide at 10 mg/kg)
- Directive (EU) 2024/1438 amending the breakfast directives (jam raised to 450 g and extra jam to 500 g per kilo; citrus marmalade; marmalade as a synonym for jam where consumers use it so; application from 14 June 2026)
- Décret n° 85-872 du 14 août 1985 relatif aux confitures, gelées et marmelades de fruits, as amended by Décret n° 2026-312 (55 percent soluble dry matter; 450 and 500 grams of fruit per kilo; the préparée avec line)
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, Article 2(2)(q) (primary ingredient), Article 18 (order of ingredients) and Article 26(3) (origin of the primary ingredient)
- Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/775 on the indication of the origin of the primary ingredient (applying from 1 April 2020)
- National Center for Home Food Preservation: Jellied Product Ingredients (fruit, pectin, acid and sugar; which fruits need added pectin and acid; sugar as the preservative)
- National Center for Home Food Preservation: Making Reduced-Sugar Fruit Spreads (gelatin spreads refrigerated and used within four weeks)
- National Center for Home Food Preservation: Lemon Curd, Canned (egg yolks, whole eggs, butter, sugar and lemon juice)
- Marchesi di San Giuliano: the estate and its range of Sicilian citrus marmalades
