Dark illustration of three stacked white nicotine pouches beside the article title on a Snus Freak featured image.

What is inside a nicotine pouch besides nicotine

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Besides nicotine, a pouch contains filler to give it bulk, a pH adjuster that largely decides how much nicotine you absorb, a sweetener, flavourings, sometimes water, and the pouch itself — and the single largest ingredient by weight is the filler, which exists mostly so the pouch is big enough to hold. Four brands publish a full list. Most publish nothing like one.

The nicotine in a pouch is a few milligrams. The pouch weighs between a quarter of a gram and seven-tenths of a gram depending on the brand. So by mass, a nicotine pouch is almost entirely the other things — and those other things are not incidental. The pH adjuster decides how much of the nicotine is in the form that crosses your mucosa. The filler decides how the pouch feels. The water content varies tenfold between brands. And the pouch material itself, which is in every user’s mouth, is the one component nobody has published in any detail.

The short list, from the manufacturers that publish one

The most useful document in this category is VELO’s US FAQ, because it publishes three separate ingredient lists for three products in the same family (velo.com/us, read 8 October 2026; the page carries no publication date):

  • “VELO Nicotine Pouches: Nicotine derived from the tobacco plant, maltitol, modified cellulose, sodium carbonates, acesulfame K, and artificial flavor.”
  • “VELO PLUS Nicotine Pouches: Non-tobacco derived synthetic nicotine, microcrystalline cellulose, sodium carbonates, sucralose, salt, water, and artificial flavor.”
  • “VELO MAX Nicotine Pouches: Nicotine derived from the tobacco plant, microcrystalline cellulose, benzoates, sucralose, salt, water, and artificial flavor.”

Three products from one maker, differing in the nicotine source, the filler, the pH-adjuster family and the sweetener. That last contrast is the one to hold onto: VELO uses sodium carbonates, VELO MAX uses benzoates. Benzoates are preservatives and acidity regulators, not alkalising agents. So within a single brand, one product is formulated to raise pH and another is not — which is a manufacturer-published counter-example to the idea that all pouches work the same way.

ZYN’s UK blog gives a functional rather than chemical breakdown, and one entry in it is more candid than anything else I found. On cellulose: “Made from plant-derived fibre, it acts as a taste carrier and filler, keeping the ZYN pouch from being too small.” On water: “Maintains the moisture of the nicotine pouches. (Water is not an ingredient for ZYN Mini, just for ZYN Regular).” On the sweetener: “ZYN uses Acesulfame K, which gives the product a balanced sweetness” (zyn.com/gb, published 27 August 2025, updated 25 November 2025).

Swedish Match’s own FAQ summarises the category in six words: “ZYN contains nicotine, fillers, pH adjusters, stabilizer, sweetener and flavors.” Rogue names only its active — “Rogue products contain the active ingredient nicotine polacrilex and other inactive food grade ingredients added for flavor and texture” — and Altria, for on!, offers nothing more specific than “non-tobacco ingredients.” Nordic Spirit publishes no ingredient list for its pouches at all, which is pointed rather than accidental, because the same FAQ page does publish one for a different product in the range: “Perlz contain Xylitol, Maltitol, Coating Agent, Flavourings, Nicotine.”

Germany’s federal risk assessment body puts the disclosure picture more neutrally than I could: “The products usually have an ingredient list, although products without an ingredient list have also been reported” (BfR Opinion 027/2021).

Filler: most of the pouch, and it is there for your hands

The bulk ingredient is cellulose in one form or another. Microcrystalline cellulose is the one that recurs across labels and in the independent literature; VELO’s base product uses “modified cellulose” plus maltitol; ZYN’s own summary adds gum arabic as a filler and a granulation agent.

Why so much of it? ZYN’s UK page says it outright: the cellulose is there “keeping the ZYN pouch from being too small.” That is a straight admission that the bulk of a nicotine pouch exists for handling and mouthfeel rather than for delivery, and I have not seen another manufacturer put it that plainly.

A 2026 analytical study describes the standard construction as pouches “typically containing a cellulose-based filler,” “nicotine or nicotine salts, preservatives, salts, pH adjusters, and flavourings” (Rantaša M & Finšgar M, Analyst, doi 10.1039/d6an00153j, first published 9 April 2026). That paper is worth more weight than most in this field because it is wholly publicly funded — the authors acknowledge support from the Slovenian Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund, and state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Pouch mass is not standardised, and the filler is why. An independent measurement of seven brands found weights from 0.25 g (on!) to 0.69 g (Rogue), with ZYN at 0.38 ± 0.002 g — a 2.8-fold spread (Platt SP et al., Scientific Reports 2026;16:4406). ZYN’s own figure agrees: “One ZYN pouch weighs approximately 0.4 grams.” The FDA’s reviews of ZYN give the same mass two ways, as “400 mg sealed pouches” in the modified risk review and as a “mg/0.4 g pouch” basis in the premarket review. So 0.4 g is solid for ZYN and means nothing for the category.

The pH adjuster: the ingredient that decides what you get

This is the part of the formulation that does the most work and gets the least attention. Nicotine crosses the oral mucosa most readily in its unprotonated, free-base form, and the proportion in that form depends on pH. Raise the pH with a carbonate and more of the nicotine is available. Swedish Match says the function plainly, of snus: “Sodium carbonate – a basic pH-regulating agent that transforms into bicarbonate in snus.”

BfR measured it. In its updated opinion, “The median pH for aqueous extracts was 8.8 for the pouches examined by the BfR, with only” “one product exhibiting an acidic pH,” and “The median proportion of free-base nicotine was 86%” (Updated BfR Opinion no. 023/2022, 7 October 2022).

But the median is the least interesting number here. BfR also reports a CDC study with pH values from 6.94 to 10.1, which it converts to free-base nicotine proportions “of 7.7% to 99.2%.” Across the category, the share of nicotine in the absorbable form ranges over essentially the whole possible interval. Independent measurement of seven US brands found pH “ranged from 7.43 for Rogue to 8.98 for Velo,” and a peer-reviewed survey found average pH from 7.0 for a VELO 4 mg product to 9.0 for a 15 mg product, with a mean free-base fraction of 63.4% ± 25.2%.

So any sentence of the form “pouches are alkaline, so the nicotine is free-base” is true on average and badly wrong at the edges. VELO MAX’s benzoate formulation is the manufacturer-side evidence for the same point. We go into this in pouch pH and why it changes the hit and nicotine salts vs freebase nicotine.

On the salt itself: the chemical forms are documented in the literature rather than consistently on labels. A 2026 survey recorded that “ONP brands LUCY, NIC-S, and Rogue disclosed nicotine polacrilex, where nicotine is bound to an ion exchange resin and delivered via an aqueous extraction, similar to therapeutic nicotine gums. ZYN and on! further indicated that nicotine in these products was salt-based. ZYN specifically disclosed the use of nicotine bitartrate dihydrate” (Page MK et al., Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2026;28(2):268–276). That name comes from the researchers’ reading of ZYN’s packaging; I could not find it on any ZYN-owned page I could load, and the ingredient breakdown ZYN’s US site promises did not render for me. Rogue’s own help pages do corroborate the polacrilex half directly: “Rogue is made from high quality nicotine polacrilex. Nicotine is extracted from the tobacco leaf using a steam process, resulting in nicotine that is 100% tobacco leaf-free.”

I should flag one gap honestly. That Page et al. paper’s funding statement and declaration of interests have now resisted retrieval across several sessions and four different routes, because the publisher does not render its end-matter and the open-access mirror is behind a verification wall. I am citing its measurements without being able to tell you who paid for them, and I would rather say so than imply there was nothing to disclose.

Sweeteners and flavourings — and the things that are not on the label

The sweeteners are the best-corroborated part of a pouch label. Acesulfame K is declared by VELO and ZYN; sucralose by VELO PLUS and VELO MAX. Independent measurement agrees: a 2026 analysis detected “Acesulfame-k” in “on!, Zyn, and Velo ONPs (~0.3 to 0.9 mg/pouch)” and sucralose in VELO products at “~0.6 to 1.2 mg/pouch,” noting that “higher nicotine strength products contained higher sucralose levels.” Manufacturer declaration and laboratory measurement line up.

Flavourings do not line up. The publicly funded Analyst study found that nicotine pouches, “which are not yet regulated regarding flavouring additives,” “contained potentially harmful compounds (cinnamaldehyde, acetaldehyde, menthofurane, pulegone, D-limonene, etc.),” “many of which were not declared on the product labels.” The same paper found that “The determined nicotine content in NPs deviated up to −52.9% from that declared by the manufacturers.”

Two other absences are worth naming. BfR, in both its opinions and in both languages, records that nicotine salts are mixed with microcrystalline cellulose, “various other salts (including sodium carbonate and hydrogen carbonate), citric acid and flavourings,” attributing that to manufacturer information. Citric acid appears on none of the labels I retrieved. And the FDA’s premarket review of ZYN states that “While the new products contain humectants” — a class that appears nowhere on ZYN’s own ingredient pages. In both cases the regulator names an ingredient the public label does not.

Water, and how dry a pouch actually is

Water is an ingredient for some products and not others, sometimes within one line: ZYN’s UK page says water is in ZYN Regular but not ZYN Mini. Measurement shows the category spreading much further than that.

Independent testing of seven brands gave moisture contents of 3.52% ± 0.08 for ZYN, 3.71% for Dryft, 4.48% for on!, 6.62% for VELO, 14.70% for Rogue, 26.64% for Loop and 37.18% ± 1.80 for Volt — a 10.6-fold spread. Set that against the FDA’s own reasoning in its ZYN review, where the agency gave the comparator range for “pouched smokeless tobacco products (30%-57%)” and found that “The lower moisture content of the new products is less conducive to microbial growth.”

Which means the microbiological rationale the FDA accepted for ZYN does not transfer across the category. ZYN at 3.5% is an order of magnitude drier than snus. Volt at 37.18% sits inside the traditional snus range. “Pouches are dry” is a statement about some brands. See dry vs moist nicotine pouches.

One caveat on the moisture and weight figures: that study was funded by Altria Client Services LLC, “an affiliate of Helix Innovations LLC, the manufacturer of on! nicotine pouches,” all eight authors were Altria employees at the time of the study, and the disclosure also records a pending Altria interest in the owner of the Loop brand. Both on! and Loop are in the comparison, and they land at opposite ends of the moisture table. The numbers are the only ones of their kind in the literature and I use them; the funding is part of the result.

The pouch itself — the one component nobody has published

Every brand that says anything says “cellulose” or “plant fibre” and stops. ZYN’s UK page: “The pouch itself is made from cellulose, a plant-derived fibre.” Pablo: “The pouch itself is made from plant fibres.” Altria has trademarked its mesh without disclosing what it is: “on! PLUS is made from our proprietary NICOSILK™ mesh technology to provide a comfortable product experience.”

The most informative statement I found is also the oldest, and it is from Swedish Match about Onico, its nicotine-free pouch rather than ZYN: “The material in the portion pouches is similar to that used in tea bags and essentially consists of cellulose fibers.” “The fibers are held together by a binding agent.” Same company and the same pouch technology, but it is a statement about a different product and should be read that way.

Then the gaps, which together are the finding. The FDA reviewed what a ZYN pouch is made of and the public document withholds it: the premarket review says the pouches “are composed of (b) (4)” — redacted as confidential commercial information. BfR, in two opinions, never assessed the pouch material at all. The one physical characterisation measured the wrap’s pore size (“Volt having the largest pore size of 104.812 μm”) and described it only as “the outer paper-like material that encases the filler,” without identifying the fibre. No primary source I could reach names viscose or any regenerated-cellulose fibre.

So for a component that sits in the mouth of every user: the makers say “plant fibre,” the US regulator knows and has redacted it, the German regulator never looked, and the one laboratory that examined it measured holes rather than chemistry.

Who has to tell you — and the strangest answer in Europe

Sweden is where this gets genuinely interesting, because the chain by which a pouch acquires an ingredient list there runs through food law without the product ever being food.

Start with the Swedish Food Agency’s own position, which is unambiguous: snus, snus-like products and chewing tobacco “är inte livsmedel enligt definitionen av livsmedel i artikel 2 i” “förordning (EG) nr 178/2002. Det innebär att EU-lagstiftningen inte kan tillämpas på dessa produkter” — they are not food under the EU definition, so EU legislation cannot be applied to them (Livsmedelsverket, Kontrollwiki, last updated 13 August 2026).

Sweden’s answer was to assimilate rather than reclassify. Livsmedelslagen (2006:804) 3 § provides that “Med livsmedel jämställs i lagen” — treated as equivalent to food — both drinking water and, since the 2024 amendment, “snus, snusliknande produkter och tuggtobak. Lag (2024:23).” The verb matters: jämställs med is “treated as equivalent to,” not “is.” Water is not food either; it is assimilated so that the enforcement machinery reaches it. Nobody should write that snus is legally a food in Sweden.

What that assimilation then reaches is oddly selective. The Food Agency’s regulation LIVSFS 2024:2, in force 1 April 2024, divides up as follows:

  • The general ingredient-safety rule reaches nicotine pouches, and expressly carves out the active: “Med undantag för tobak och nikotin, och de ingredienser som regleras särskilt nedan,” “får snus, snusliknande produkter och tuggtobak inte innehålla ingredienser som utgör en risk för människors hälsa.” The law is, almost literally, about the besides.
  • The positive additive list and the approved-flavourings rule do not reach them — 4 § and 5 § say “snus och tuggtobak” only. The agency confirms it: “För snusliknande produkter saknas särskilda bestämmelser om vilka tillsatser eller aromer som får ingå i produkten.”
  • Water does reach them, and this is my favourite provision in the whole file: “Det vatten som används vid framställning och beredning av snus, snusliknande produkter och tuggtobak” “ska uppfylla kraven i Livsmedelsverkets föreskrifter (LIVSFS 2022:12) om dricksvatten.” The water in a Swedish-market nicotine pouch is regulated as drinking water.
  • Contaminant limits split: lead above 3 mg/kg, aflatoxins above 0.005 mg/kg and benzo(a)pyrene above 0.003 mg/kg dry weight are prohibited in snus-like products too, while the tobacco-specific nitrosamine ceiling applies only to snus and chewing tobacco. Logical, since those nitrosamines are tobacco-derived — but it means there is no Swedish TSNA limit on a tobacco-free pouch.
  • And the food-law ingredient declaration applies only to the nicotine-free ones: 14 § covers “snusliknande produkter utan nikotin.” The agency states the consequence directly — nicotine-containing snus-like products “behöver däremot varken beteckning eller ingrediensförteckning” under this regulation.

So where does the ingredient list on a Swedish nicotine pouch come from? The tobacco-free nicotine products act, not food law. Lag (2022:1257) 7 § requires that “Förpackningar till tobaksfria nikotinprodukter ska förses med en innehållsdeklaration och en text som upplyser om nikotinets skadeverkningar (hälsovarning).” Food law requires a weight-ordered list from the nicotine-free pouch and nothing from the nicotine one; the nicotine one gets its list from a separate statute entirely.

Contrast Germany, under the same EU food framework. BfR records that nicotine pouches are “currently classified as a ‘novel food’ by the federal state authorities in Germany” “and are being withdrawn from the market as they exceed the acute reference dose for nicotine.” Same product, same framework, opposite outcome. For the wider picture see the global regulation tracker.

Who publishes what

Brand Disclosure on its own site What it names
VELO / VELO PLUS / VELO MAX (US) Full named chemical list, three products Nicotine source, filler, pH-adjuster family, sweetener, flavour, salt, water
ZYN (UK) Functional list, no chemical names, no quantities Nicotine, flavourings, cellulose, pH adjusters, acesulfame K, water, pouch material
ZYN (US) Summary only on the page I could load “a granulation agent, fillers, pH balancers, sweeteners and flavorings”; pouch weight 0.4 g
Rogue Active named, rest generic Nicotine polacrilex; “other inactive food grade ingredients”
Swedish Match Category summary; pouch material for Onico Fillers, pH adjusters, stabilizer, sweetener, flavors; cellulose fibres and a binding agent
on! / Altria Generic only “tobacco-derived nicotine and non-tobacco ingredients”; NICOSILK™ mesh, composition undisclosed
Pablo Generic only “high-quality nicotine and food-grade ingredients”; pouch of “plant fibres”
Nordic Spirit None for the pouches Publishes a full list for its Perlz product on the same page
White Fox, Klint, LOOP, Skruf Not determinable No manufacturer page with an ingredient list could be loaded; treat as unretrieved, not as silence

Frequently asked questions

What is the largest ingredient in a nicotine pouch?

Filler, by a wide margin — microcrystalline or modified cellulose, sometimes with maltitol or gum arabic. ZYN’s own site says the cellulose is there to keep the pouch “from being too small.”

Do nicotine pouches contain tobacco?

Tobacco-free pouches contain no tobacco leaf, but most contain nicotine extracted from the tobacco plant. VELO publishes both cases on one page: VELO and VELO MAX use “Nicotine derived from the tobacco plant,” VELO PLUS uses “Non-tobacco derived synthetic nicotine.” See tobacco-free vs synthetic nicotine.

Is the pouch material safe to keep in your mouth?

I cannot tell you, and neither can anyone else from published material. No regulator has assessed the fleece, the FDA’s review of its composition is redacted, and the makers describe it only as cellulose or plant fibre. In Sweden, LIVSFS 2024:2 requires materials in contact with these products to meet food-contact-material requirements under Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 — though the provision does not name the pouch wrapper specifically.

Why do pouches have a sweetener if they are not sweet?

Because the measured content does not always match the marketing. A 2026 analysis found acesulfame K in products sold as “Unflavored” or “Flavor ban-approved,” which is a sweetener present in a product offered as unflavoured.

Can I trust the ingredient list on the can?

Partly. The sweeteners check out against laboratory measurement. The flavourings do not — the independent Analyst study found compounds “not declared on the product labels” — and the declared nicotine deviated by as much as −52.9% from measurement. Treat the list as indicative of what is in there and not of how much.

Which brands tell you the most?

VELO’s US FAQ and ZYN’s UK blog, by a clear margin. Several brands publish nothing. See the complete guide to nicotine pouches, how nicotine pouches actually work, the 6 mg tier, what “all-white” really means, nicotine-free and functional pouches, and the master ranking.

Sources

Last verified 8 October 2026.

Nicotine is addictive. No tobacco or nicotine product is safe, and completely stopping is the lowest-risk option. This site is for adults who already use nicotine — 21+ in the United States, 18+ or your local legal age elsewhere. Nothing here is medical advice.