According to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) chief executive officer Arun Singhal they have definite plan to go ahead with a new star rating system for packaged foods and beverages, instead of telling companies to use warning labels on the basis of ingredients.
The move has been opposed by close to a dozen consumer and health advocacy groups, which argue that the measure won’t help shoppers looking to eat healthy. Consumer Voice, Nutrition Advocacy for Public Interest (NAPi), Civic Action Group (CAG), People’s Vigilance Committee (PVC), Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International, and Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) are among those that have written to the health ministry and, in some cases, the Prime Minister’s Office over the past four-five weeks, opposing the FSSAI move.
In an April 8 letter addressed to the health ministry, the People’s Vigilance Committee stated that nutrition warnings on food packs are an “urgently required intervention” to protect public health. According to the organizations’ letters, star ratings will dilute warnings about high sugar, salt, and saturated fat levels that exceed threshold limits. They called for direct warning labels on packs.
The FSSAI chief executive officer, nevertheless, explained that the IIM-A has recommended health star ratings after a survey of over 20,000 Indian consumers. We will go by what consumers have preferred. ” The regulator had mandated the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, to conduct a detailed report on front-of-pack labelling for packaged and processed foods in the middle of last year, the first time an external entity was roped in for the purpose.
Consumer Voice chief executive Ashim Sanyal said, though, that the rating model was misleading and asked, “How does FSSAI expect consumers to figure out what the ratings even mean?” What is needed are upfront labels that state whether the foods are high in sugar or salt. Internationally, the rating system has also failed to reduce junk food consumption.
The FSSAI is set to release the draft regulations shortly, followed by the final guidelines. The rules have been at the consultation stage for seven years. The upcoming move will directly impact makers of packaged foods and beverages such as Nestle, PepsiCo, ITC, Hindustan Unilever, and Britannia.
Sanyal purported that the FSSAI’s move is in the “interests of large food companies, not consumers.” CUTS International and CSE noted that the star rating model is misleading since warnings about excess unhealthy ingredients would be overshadowed by healthier nutrients in the algorithm used to calculate the rating.
In February this year, a study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) stated that consumers prefer direct warnings as the most effective type of labelling to warn them about excess salt, sugar, and fat in packaged processed foods.
According to the study, people are ready to make healthier food choices on the basis of clear, front-of-pack labels instead of star ratings, which would be difficult to understand. Processed and packaged food companies have conveyed their reluctance to implement such front-of-pack labelling since it would directly impact consumption.
According to existing guidelines, some amount of back-of-pack ingredient labelling is mandatory, including symbols to signify “red” for non-vegetarians and “green” for vegetarians. Chile and Brazil are among the countries that have adopted ‘high-in’warning labels upfront on their food packs, which has succeeded in reducing consumption of unhealthy ultra-processed foods and beverages.