June 18, 2021
FSSAI appears to have found a new way to ‘deal’ with WHO’s acceptable fat, sugar, and salt contents in packaged foods, as the national apex food regulator has structured its own set of guidelines in this regard, increasing the limits of all such contents by eight times above international standards to allow the sale of ‘unhealthy’ packaged products with no content restrictions.
According to reports, the supreme food regulator totally followed the WHO’s sodium and sugar requirements in its draught Labelling and Display Regulation, which was released two years ago, and modified the rules in the case of fat.
Surprisingly, according to sources, the adopted regulation was not implemented due to the ‘interference’ of the packaged food industry, because if the regulations had been implemented, approximately 90% of the packaged food items would have been removed from the shelves after receiving the unhealthy category label.
According to an FSSAI research published in December 2020, when industry expressed concerns about the impact of food regulator laws, the FSSAI formed a Working Group to assess the standards adopted in the draft Labelling and Display Regulations.
According to reports, the Working Group has created a new set of recommendations in which the acceptable limit of salt, sugar, and fat has been relaxed up to eight times as compared to previous limitations, and it will be included in the draft version soon after requesting suggestions from stakeholders.
As a result, even though the ingredients of our food, such as fat, sodium (salt), and sugar, are many times higher than international requirements, packaged food items are deemed healthy products.
The FSSAI intends to adopt the amended standards by November of this year. The Working Group has proposed increasing the permissible limit of sugar in chocolates to 35 gram/100 gms, up to 50 gms in hard candy, 40 gms in soft candy, 20 gms in cakes, and no limit in bread, buns, and other bakery products, as opposed to WHO and FSSAI’s permissible limit of 6 gms/100 gms.
The Working Group has also argued for increasing the salt content of snacks and chips to 400 milligrams per 100 gms, as opposed to the WHO’s recommendation of 250 milligrams per 100 gms. In the instance of saturated fat, the Working Group increased the percentage of calories in cheese, paneer, and other dairy products by 15%, compared to the WHO’s recommended 10% saturated fat of total energy, which varies by product.
Food business barons are requesting that these restrictions be relaxed because they are concerned that their products would not be produced if these standards are implemented. The packaged food sector is worth more than Rs 2.5 lakh crore in India.