Label guide

How to read a white pouch label

By White Pouch Guide EditorialLast updated: 4 November 2026

The strength line on a white pouch can is a number printed by the maker, and makers don’t all print the same kind of number. This page explains how to read that line, what it doesn’t tell you and what the brands covered on this site publish about their own products. It doesn’t compare strengths across the market and it doesn’t tell you which strength to use. Pouches contain nicotine, which is addictive, and the CDC says: “There are no safe tobacco products, including nicotine pouches.”

Two units: mg/g and mg per pouch

mg/g is a concentration: milligrams of nicotine per gram of pouch contents. mg per pouch is a total: the milligrams of nicotine in one pouch. The two are linked by the weight of the pouch:

mg per pouch = mg/g × pouch weight in grams

As a made-up example, a 0.5 g pouch at 10 mg/g holds 5 mg, while a 1.0 g pouch at 10 mg/g holds 10 mg. Same mg/g figure, double the nicotine per pouch. A real case: the seller Nicotobacco lists Cuba Ninja Mint Fresh at 30 mg/g and 15.6 mg per pouch. Dividing 15.6 by 30 gives 0.52 g, the pouch weight those two figures imply.

The unit is not always stated. When the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) examined 44 nicotine pouches from 20 manufacturers, it found that “A clear labelling of the nicotine content was missing on 29 products and nicotine strength descriptions were ambiguous,” and its authors concluded that “Labels of nicotine strength on most products are misleading.” If a can gives a number without a unit, you can’t tell which of the two it means.

Names like Strong and Max are not a standard

Words such as Regular, Strong, X-Strong or Max are each maker’s own labels, and the same word covers different amounts of nicotine from one brand to the next. ZYN’s UK range, for example, uses Max for 16.5 mg per pouch, while the übbs Menthol pouch sold as Max is 14 mg per pouch on its maker’s page. Read the number and its unit, not the word.

Pouch size is no guide either. The Polish maker of 77 lists its Ghost Mini products at 20 mg, the top of the 5.2, 10.4 and 20 mg strengths on its site. A small pouch is not a weak one.

The label is not the dose you absorb

The printed figure says how much nicotine is in the pouch. It doesn’t say how much reaches your body. The CDC states that “Nicotine is absorbed through the gums and lining of the mouth,” and laboratory studies show that pouches with the same printed figure can differ in other ways, such as pH and how much of the nicotine is in the free-base form. No health authority figure for how much of a pouch’s nicotine is absorbed was found while writing this page, so none is given here.

Whether it may be sold where you live

A label says nothing about legality. Some countries cap the nicotine in a pouch and some ban pouches outright, and the rules change, so check your own national authority. In the United States the FDA keeps a list of authorized nicotine pouches and says: “These are the only nicotine pouch products that may be lawfully sold in the United States.” Its January 2025 ZYN authorization “does not mean these tobacco products are safe, nor are they ‘FDA approved.’”

What each brand covered here publishes

Only the maker’s own figures are shown. Where a maker’s site gave no strength, none is shown. nicopodstore lists approximate mg/g tiers for these brands, but those are the shop’s figures, not the makers’, and they differ from the makers’ in some cases, so they are not repeated here.

Brand	Maker or seller	Published strength
Cuba Ninja	Nicotobacco	30 mg/g and 15.6 mg per pouch (Ninja range)
CLEW	Nevcore Innovations	Strengths of 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15 and 20 mg in the maker’s 2024 press release, with no per-gram figure
77	Luna Corporate	5.2, 10.4 and 20 mg; Ghost Mini at 20 mg
NEAFS	neafs.com	No nicotine figure on its pouch pages
Klint	Habit Factory	No strength figure on the maker’s site
White Fox	Swedish Smokeless Solutions	No strength figure on the maker’s site

CLEW’s cans in the shop are labelled in mg per pouch (10 mg), as nicopodstore’s brand page reports, so a mg/g figure for CLEW can’t be read straight off the label. The 77 site prints “mg” without saying per pouch or per gram.

Reading a label: what to check

Which unit is printed, mg/g or mg per pouch, or neither.
The pouch weight, if you want to convert between the two units.
That tier words (Regular, Strong, Max, Mini) mean nothing outside the brand that prints them.
Whether the product may legally be sold where you live.

Safety and further reading

Nicotine pouches are not a licensed way to stop smoking: the NHS says “Nicotine pouches are not licensed stop smoking products in the UK,” and the CDC says “The FDA has not approved any nicotine pouches to help people quit smoking.” If you don’t use nicotine, there’s no reason to start. For handling, see the usage guide; if a pouch has been swallowed, read what to do if a nicotine pouch is swallowed. The shop’s own articles cover how nicotine pouch strength is described and reported side effects of nicotine pouches. Product formats are laid out on the brands page. Nothing here is medical or legal advice.

Sources

Sources last checked 5 October 2026; the FDA list was checked again on 3 November 2026.