Household Ingredients Compared  ›  Marmalade (Singapore)

Marmalade: what's actually in it?

Marmalade is a citrus preserve made from fruit, sugar and a gelling agent — usually pectin — with the peel suspended in the set jelly. That sounds simple, but the jars on a Singapore shelf differ in four ways that matter. First, the fruit: bitter (Seville) oranges give a sharp, bitter edge; sweet oranges are milder; lemon, grapefruit, lime, mandarin and calamansi are different citrus altogether. Second, the sweetener: most jars start with sugar, some start with glucose-fructose syrup, and a few use no added sugar at all, sweetened only with fruit juice concentrates. Third, the fruit content: UK-style labels state how much fruit was used per 100 g — from 20 g to 51 g on this page — and that changes how much of the jar is fruit versus sugar syrup. Fourth, the cut: fine cut, medium cut, thick cut and "shredless" describe the peel, not the ingredients, though thick-cut jars often carry more fruit.

This page covers orange marmalade and other citrus marmalades (lemon, grapefruit, lime, mixed citrus, calamansi) sold in Singapore. Sweet orange, bitter/Seville orange, reduced-sugar and no-added-sugar variants are separate rows. This page does not cover strawberry jam or kaya jam — those have their own pages — and it does not give a health score or a "best" pick.

The headline, in 30 seconds

• Sugar is the first ingredient in almost every panelled marmalade. The exceptions are the no-added-sugar St Dalfour (oranges first, sweetened with grape and date juice concentrates) and the reduced-sugar Tiptree style, where oranges come first — but that variant is not panelled here, because no Singapore sale was verified for it.
• Glucose-fructose syrup leads in the cheaper British breakfast jars. Robertson's Golden Shred, Hartley's-style and Duerr's Fine Cut (the 454 g glucose-fructose version) start with glucose-fructose syrup, not sugar. Duerr's Fine Cut Seville Orange 340 g and Manchester Marmalade are different products: they start with sugar.
• Fruit content varies more than two-fold. St Dalfour is 51% oranges; Tiptree Tawny is prepared with 47 g of fruit per 100 g; Mackay's Dundee and Duerr's Fine Cut Seville are 35 g and 25 g respectively; Robertson's Golden Shred and the Duerr's Fine Cut breakfast jar are 20 g. The "total sugar content" printed alongside is 60–68 g per 100 g in most of these jars.
• The simplest lists are the shortest. Tiptree Tawny is two ingredients — sugar and Seville oranges. Duerr's Manchester is four — sugar, oranges, lemon juice, tangerine oil. Bonne Maman Bitter Orange is five, with white sugar and cane sugar listed separately. The Straits Preserves Singapore jars are four or five ingredients each, all starting with sugar.
• Champagne, whisky and ginger are flavour variants, not different products in kind. Mrs Bridges Celebration Marmalade with Champagne is still sugar and oranges first, with champagne at 0.7–1%.
• One FairPrice nutrition panel looks wrong. FairPrice's per-100 g panel for Bonne Maman Bitter Orange Marmalade prints 200 kJ energy and 12 g carbohydrate — about a fifth of the brand/Open Food Facts figures for the same product (about 1,016–1,102 kJ and 59–64 g carbohydrate per 100 g). The FairPrice figure is quoted as printed, flagged, and not used as the basis for any comparison. See the nutrition section.
• Singapore has its own marmalades too. Straits Preserves, a Singapore maker, sells four marmalades in Singapore — Tropical Calamansi, Spice Island, Singapore Sling and Ginger Garden — all panelled here from the brand's own Singapore site, with short lists starting with sugar.

At a glance

Panelled with verbatim lists: 15 products. Four are panelled from FairPrice Singapore ingredient sections (Bonne Maman Bitter Orange, Mackay's Dundee Orange, Smucker's Sweet Orange, Yarra Valley Marmalade). The other eleven are sold in Singapore and panelled from brand or retailer lists that are flagged as non-SG sources, with the Singapore sale noted per card — the SG pack has not been transcribed for any of them, so an SG pack photo is still the closing check. Seen-but-not-verified: see the list below.

Prices are deliberately not shown here: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

Bitter / Seville orange — the classic jars

Sweet orange

No added sugar

Flavoured / celebration variants

Singapore-made — Straits Preserves

Straits Preserves is a Singapore maker (Singapore's first homegrown producer of Asian marmalades, per its own site and press coverage). Its marmalades are sold in Singapore via Lazada Singapore / RedMart specialty stores. All four lists below are from the brand's own Singapore site, so they are SG-brand lists — but no per-100 g nutrition panel was retrieved for any of them, so their nutrition is in seen-but-not-verified.

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked

• Golden Light Jam — Orange Marmalade (450g, FairPrice, Halal) — listed at FairPrice Singapore, but no ingredient section or verbatim list was retrieved in this pass. Needs an SG pack check.
• Scalzo Marmalade — Orange (230g) and Scalzo Marmalade — Mandarin (230g, FairPrice) — listed at FairPrice. The FairPrice description says the orange version is "made exclusively with fresh oranges and sugar, without the addition of thickeners such as pectin" and uses "the zest, pulp and juice of the fruit" — that is a description, not a verbatim ingredient list, so neither is panelled. Needs an SG pack check.
• Duerr's Fine Cut Marmalade (454g, FairPrice) — listed at FairPrice alongside the 340 g Fine Cut Seville jar. The UK Fine Cut breakfast/portion jar starts with glucose-fructose syrup and is prepared with 20 g of fruit per 100 g; whether the SG 454 g jar is that product or the sugar-first Seville jar in a larger pack was not established in this pass. Do not assume it matches either panelled Duerr's row.
• Duerr's Thick Cut / Coarse Cut Seville Orange Marmalade and Duerr's Seville Orange Breakfast Marmalade — UK brand lists exist (Thick Cut: sugar, oranges, acidity regulators, pectin, plain caramel, bitter orange peel extract, bitter orange oil; Breakfast: glucose-fructose syrup, sugar, oranges, pectin, citric acid, sodium citrates), but no Singapore sale was found for either in this pass.
• Robertson's Silver Shred Marmalade (lemon, 454g) and Robertson's Golden Shredless Marmalade (454g) — listed by BWI Imports alongside Golden Shred; a UK/Canada list for Silver Shred exists (glucose-fructose syrup, water, sugar, lemon juice from concentrate, lemon peel, pectin, citric acid, sodium citrates, lemon oil, colours: beta carotene, curcumin), but no SG pack list was retrieved and the SG sale is import-grocer only. Golden Shredless has no verbatim list retrieved in this pass.
• Robertson's Seville Orange Marmalade (the "Sugar, Oranges, Water, Gelling Agent: Pectin, Citric Acid" variant) — a different Robertson's list from Golden Shred, found on a Canadian retailer; no Singapore sale found in this pass. Do not use it as the Golden Shred list.
• Hartley's Breakfast Medium Cut Marmalade (454g) and Hartley's Olde English Thick Cut Marmalade (454g) — UK lists exist (Breakfast: glucose-fructose syrup, oranges, orange juice from concentrate, sugar, pectin, citric acid, sodium citrates, plain caramel; Olde English: glucose-fructose syrup, oranges, sugar, citric acid, pectin, sodium citrates, plain caramel), but no Singapore sale was found for either in this pass.
• Tiptree Orange Marmalade (standard), Tiptree 'Crystal' Orange Marmalade, Tiptree Orange Reduced Sugar Marmalade, Tiptree Lemon Marmalade, Tiptree Lime Marmalade, Tiptree Three Fruits Marmalade — UK brand lists exist for all of these (standard: sugar, Seville oranges, citrus pectin; Crystal: sugar, Seville oranges, citrus pectin, 43 g fruit/100 g; Reduced Sugar: oranges first, sugar, water, citrus pectin, citric acid, 40 g fruit/100 g, total sugar 40 g/100 g; Lemon and Lime via Fruugo Singapore listings). Only Tawny is panelled, because only Tawny had a verifiable Singapore sale plus a matching list in this pass. The Reduced Sugar variant is the one reduced-sugar row most worth closing with an SG pack check.
• Hero Premium Marmalade — Bitter Orange (Switzerland/USA) — lists exist and disagree by market (Hero foodservice: sugar, bitter orange pulp, lemon juice from concentrate, citrus pectin; US retail: sugar, oranges, wheat syrup, citric acid, pectin). No Singapore sale was found in this pass. Hero's sugar-free orange marmalade (water, oranges, polydextrose, maltodextrin, fruit pectin, sucralose) is a US product with no SG sale found either.
• Darbo Orange Marmalade — listed on Shopee Singapore among mini jam assortments, but no verbatim list was retrieved in this pass.
• St Dalfour Ginger & Orange Marmalade — a separate St Dalfour variant (US listings, 50 calories per tablespoon); no Singapore sale and no verbatim list retrieved in this pass. Do not use the plain Orange list for it.
• Straits Preserves Pineapple Tart Marmalade — listed on Lazada Singapore / RedMart specialty stores, but no verbatim ingredient list was retrieved in this pass.
• Bonne Maman Orange Marmalade Jam (335g, Cold Storage) and Bonne Maman mini portion jars (30g, Shopee Singapore) — Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page, so the 335 g jar cannot be panelled from its site; it is probably the same product as the FairPrice 370 g Bitter Orange jar in a different pack, but that is an inference, not evidence. The 30 g portions are the same product in portion form, not a separate recipe.
• Cold Storage, Giant, Sheng Siong, Don Don Donki, Mustafa, Meidi-Ya and Le Petit Depot marmalade ranges — no marmalade listings with retrievable ingredient sections were found for these channels in this pass (Cold Storage publishes no ingredient lists at all). Their shelves were not inventoried in store, so house-brand and other import marmalades on those shelves remain open. An in-store pack-photo pass is the closing step.
• Mackay's Vintage Dundee Orange Marmalade — UK variant with brown sugar in the list; no Singapore sale found in this pass. Do not use its list for the standard Dundee jar panelled above.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All figures in the table are as sold, per 100 g, unless a row says otherwise. Sugars in marmalade are mostly added sugars — sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, high fructose corn syrup or fruit juice concentrates are the sweetener in every panelled product — so the "total sugars" figure here is not the fruit's own sugar alone, unlike 100% juice. The ingredient panels remain the evidence for which sweetener was used. No official Singapore Nutri-Grade (A–D) was found printed on any of these marmalade listings in this pass, so none is quoted here; no grade has been assigned.

Salt and sodium: salt = sodium × 2.5. The table shows sodium as printed (in mg) with the salt equivalent in brackets. Where a source prints salt only, sodium is derived as salt ÷ 2.5 and marked as derived. Sodium is not presented as salt, and salt is not presented as sodium.

Total vs added sugars: most Singapore packs list total sugars, not added sugars. A total-sugars figure is never labelled here as "added sugar". Where a source states an added-sugars figure separately, it is noted in the research notes. The ingredient list remains the evidence for added sugar (sugar, glucose-fructose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, treacle) versus naturally occurring sugars.

Open Food Facts is a community database and is flagged as secondary where used: the pack and the retailer nutrition section take precedence if they disagree. Figures marked "not stated" were not in the source retrieved; they are not estimated, borrowed from another variant, or copied across flavours. UK retailer/brand nutrition panels are flagged as non-SG sources, like the ingredient lists they accompany.

Observed numbers, no verdict: among the per-100 g rows, St Dalfour lists the lowest sugars (48 g) and the lowest energy (900 kJ / 212 kcal); Mackay's Dundee lists the highest sugars (66.7 g); Tiptree Tawny lists the highest energy (1,208 kJ / 284 kcal) and Duerr's Fine Cut Seville the highest carbohydrate (69.5 g). Sodium is 0 mg per 100 g for Tiptree Tawny, and 4 mg (derived from 0.01 g salt) for Duerr's Manchester, 8 mg (derived from 0.02 g salt) for St Dalfour, and 24 mg (derived from 0.06 g salt) for Duerr's Fine Cut Seville. Chivers is the only panelled product whose source states added sugars separately: 9 g added sugars in a 15 g tablespoon, out of 9 g total sugars.

Flag — Bonne Maman FairPrice nutrition panel: FairPrice's per-100 g panel for Bonne Maman Bitter Orange Marmalade prints energy 200 kJ, carbohydrate 12 g and sugars 11.8 g. That conflicts sharply with every other source for the same product: Open Food Facts for the 370 g bitter orange fine shred jar gives 1,016 kJ (240 kcal), carbohydrate 59 g and sugars 59 g per 100 g, and a UK foodservice specification gives 1,102 kJ (260 kcal), carbohydrate 64 g and sugars 64 g per 100 g, with total sugar content 60 g per 100 g on the label. The FairPrice figures are internally consistent with each other (12 g carbohydrate ≈ 200 kJ) but look like a per-serving figure mislabelled as per 100 g, or a data error. The FairPrice figures are tabled above exactly as printed, flagged here, and not used in any comparison. An SG pack photo of the nutrition panel is the closing check.

Seen but not verified (nutrition): no per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for Yarra Valley Marmalade (retail 475 g jar — the foodservice 2.5 kg specification's figures belong to a different list and were not used), Robertson's Golden Shred Marmalade (retail 454 g jar — portion-jelly nutrition was not used), Mrs Bridges Celebration Marmalade with Champagne (only a total sugar content of 65 g per 100 g from the ingredient declaration, and a single German-retailer sugar figure of 67.4 g per 100 g, neither a full panel), or any of the four Straits Preserves marmalades. Their ingredient panels are unchanged; their nutrition figures are not estimated here, and no other product's figures are copied onto them.

How to read a marmalade label — the jargon, in plain English

Seville / bitter orange

A sharp, bitter variety of orange, traditionally used for marmalade. "Bitter orange" on a label usually means Seville oranges. Sweet orange marmalade is milder and is a different product.

Fine cut / medium cut / thick cut

How thick the shreds of peel are. Fine cut is thin shreds, thick cut is chunky peel. It is a texture description, not an ingredient difference — but thick-cut jars on this page also tend to carry more fruit per 100 g.

Shred / shredless

"Shred" is the peel suspended in the jelly. "Shredless" (or jelly) marmalade has no peel pieces — it is a clear jelly made from the juice. Golden Shred is Robertson's fine-cut jelly marmalade; Silver Shred is its lemon version.

Prepared with __g of fruit per 100g

A UK label declaration: how much fruit went into 100 g of finished marmalade. Higher means more fruit and, usually, less syrup. St Dalfour states it as a percentage instead (51% oranges).

Total sugar content __g per 100g

Another UK label declaration: all sugars in the finished product, added and naturally occurring, per 100 g. It is usually a few grams below the nutrition-panel sugars figure, because the two are measured differently — do not expect them to match exactly.

Glucose-fructose syrup / high fructose corn syrup

Sweeteners made from starch (usually corn or wheat). When one of these is first on the list, it — not sugar — is the main sweetener. "Sugar" on a UK label usually means sucrose; "cane sugar" is sucrose from cane, listed separately when both are used.

Pectin / fruit pectin / citrus pectin

The gelling agent that sets the marmalade. It occurs naturally in citrus peel, and is also added as an ingredient. A jar that lists no pectin (Duerr's Manchester, Tiptree Tawny, Straits Preserves) relies on the fruit's own pectin to set.

Acidity regulators (citric acid, sodium citrates; E330, E331)

Added to control acidity and help the pectin set. Citric acid also occurs naturally in citrus fruit. Their presence does not mean the marmalade is artificially flavoured.

"No added sugar" vs "no sugar"

St Dalfour has no added sugar, but it still contains 48 g of sugars per 100 g — those sugars come from the oranges and the grape/date juice concentrates used to sweeten it. "No added sugar" never means sugar-free.

Orange oil / tangerine oil / bitter orange oil

Essential oils from citrus peel, used in small amounts for aroma. They are flavourings, not extra fruit.

What this page is not

• Not a health score, and not a "best" pick. Sugar-first, syrup-first and no-added-sugar marmalades are different products, and this page does not rank them.
• Not a taste test, and not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
• Not complete. Golden Light and Scalzo at FairPrice, the Cold Storage / Giant / Sheng Siong / Donki / Mustafa / Meidi-Ya / Le Petit Depot shelves, and the Hartley's, Tiptree Reduced Sugar and Hero jars listed above are not yet panelled, for the verification reasons given, not hidden. Eleven of the fifteen panelled rows rest on non-SG brand/retailer lists, not SG pack transcriptions, and still need an SG pack photo each.

Sources and method

Checked 5–6 November 2026 from: FairPrice Singapore ingredient sections (Bonne Maman Bitter Orange Marmalade, Mackay's Dundee Orange, Smucker's Sweet Orange, Yarra Valley Marmalade) and FairPrice category / similar-product listings (Duerr's Manchester, Duerr's Fine Cut Seville, Duerr's Fine Cut 454g, Chivers English Orange, Mrs Bridges with Champagne, Golden Light Orange, Scalzo Orange/Mandarin); Cold Storage Singapore listings (Bonne Maman Orange Marmalade 335g — inventory only, no ingredient sections published); Duerr's brand site (Manchester and Fine Cut Seville lists and nutrition); Tiptree brand site and Ocado/Bestway UK listings (Tawny, Crystal, Reduced Sugar, standard); St Dalfour UK brand/retailer listings (Ocado, Tesco IE, St Dalfour UK) with Shopee Singapore and iHerb Singapore for SG sale; Chivers USA brand site; Robertson's UK retailer listings (McGrocer, OneStop, Brakes) with NineLife Singapore, Desertcart Singapore and BWI Imports for SG sale; Mrs Bridges UK retailer listings (Charlies, The English Tearoom, Faire) with FairPrice Singapore for SG sale; Straits Preserves Singapore brand site (all four lists) with Lazada Singapore / RedMart specialty stores for SG sale; Ubuy Singapore and Fruugo Singapore for Tiptree SG import availability; Open Food Facts (Bonne Maman bitter orange fine shred, Mackay's Dundee, Chivers Olde English) flagged as secondary. Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Nutrition section added 5–6 November 2026: figures are standardised to per 100 g where the source gives per-100 figures; per-serving-only figures are labelled as such and are not converted; sugars are total sugars as printed, not added sugars, unless the source states added sugars; salt = sodium × 2.5. Where a full pack list could not be verified, the product is in seen-but-not-verified instead of being panelled.