For years, an Indian shopper eager to understand how a lot sugar, fats or salt sat inside a packet of chips or a bottle of soda has needed to flip it over and decode the small print. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) now needs to alter that.
Beneath a proposal positioned earlier than the Supreme Courtroom, a purple hexagon carrying phrases comparable to “HIGH FAT”, “HIGH SUGAR” or “HIGH SALT” may quickly turn into a well-recognized sight on the entrance of packaged meals in India, wherever the product crosses outlined thresholds. The proposal comes virtually a fortnight after the Supreme Courtroom questioned the regulator’s reluctance to introduce a front-of-pack warning system and gave it two weeks to take a last choice.
The importance of the proposal lies not merely within the form or color of a brand new label, however within the shift within the regulatory method that has adopted the Supreme Courtroom’s intervention. For years, India’s debate over front-of-pack labelling has centred on how vitamin info ought to be introduced to shoppers, with the FSSAI contemplating a star-rating system and in depth stakeholder consultations.
Nevertheless, the courtroom’s intervention has now introduced the main target squarely on a extra direct query: ought to shoppers be expressly warned, on the level of buy, when a packaged meals is excessive in ranges that may pose well being dangers? The reply rising from the regulator’s newest affidavit is a proposed warning-based system, albeit one which might be launched in phases and nonetheless has to undergo the regulatory course of, aside from the Supreme Court’s subsequent directives.
The regulator’s proposal additionally got here inside days of a Reuters investigation that reported on a March 19 assembly at which meals business executives had advised FSSAI officers that interpretive meals labels have been complicated and unsuited to Indian palates. The report additionally gave the examples of a formulation hole between the identical manufacturers bought in India and overseas, i.e. a can of Fanta bought in London, as an example, has 63 energy, whereas the Indian model carries roughly thrice as a lot sugar and a synthetic dye that will have triggered a compulsory well being warning in Europe.
HT had earlier examined how front-of-pack labelling programs work throughout main economies — from Chile’s black octagonal warnings and the European Union’s Nutri-Rating grades to the US’s proposed simplified field.
What precisely is FSSAI proposing?
The regulator has proposed a red-coloured hexagonal warning on the entrance of packaged meals the place the product is excessive in any two or extra of three specified vitamins — added fats, added sugar and salt — primarily based on thresholds below the Dietary Pointers for Indians, 2024, issued by the Nationwide Institute of Vitamin (ICMR-NIN). The label would spell out the related warning: “HIGH FAT”, “HIGH SUGAR” and/or “HIGH SALT”. Specified sweetened drinks would carry a separate “HIGHLY SWEETENED BEVERAGE” warning.
The warnings are meant to be tough to overlook. FSSAI has proposed that they be displayed in a font one level bigger than that used within the vitamin info desk on the again of the pack. The affidavit additionally units out illustrations exhibiting mixtures comparable to “HIGH FAT HIGH SALT”, “HIGH SALT HIGH SUGAR” and “HIGH FAT HIGH SUGAR”.
The system would initially be narrower than a blanket warning for each product excessive in certainly one of these vitamins.
Section I might cowl merchandise excessive in two or extra of the desired vitamins, together with specified sweetened drinks. Section II would prolong the warning to merchandise excessive in any one of many vitamins. The phased method is meant to present shoppers time to adapt and business time for reformulation.
There would even be exemptions. FSSAI has proposed excluding single-ingredient meals and merchandise (together with contemporary produce, grains and carbs, fat and pantry staples) inherently wealthy in fats, sugar or salt, comparable to ghee, edible oil, salt, sugar, jaggery and honey, topic to different relevant labelling necessities.
In sensible phrases, the proposal may change what shoppers see earlier than they flip a packet round to learn its vitamin desk. As a substitute of requiring a consumer to interpret grams of sugar, fats or sodium buried within the dietary info, the entrance of the packet would supply a direct warning the place the product crosses the prescribed thresholds.
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The Supreme Courtroom’s push
The proposal follows an unusually direct intervention by the Supreme Courtroom in a public curiosity litigation (PIL) filed by 3S and Our Well being Society. On August 13, a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Okay Vinod Chandran took exception to the regulator’s reluctance to introduce front-of-pack warnings regardless of the courtroom having earlier requested it to contemplate the measure.
The courtroom described front-of-package labelling (FoPL) as an “assistive machine” to assist shoppers make knowledgeable buying selections and more healthy dietary selections, saying its function was to place readily understood vitamin info on the package deal in the meanwhile a buying choice is made.
The bench’s concern was notably focussed on kids. It famous that weight problems had emerged as a public-health problem and referred to information exhibiting that the proportion of chubby school-age kids and adolescents had risen from 2% in 2000 to 10% in 2022. It additionally cited a distinction in kids’s meals environments. Whereas round 80% of meals and drinks out there inside faculties have been freshly cooked meals, almost 80% of what was out there round faculties consisted of packaged snacks, it famous.
The courtroom additionally referred to the Financial Survey 2025-26, which recorded that India’s ultra-processed meals market had elevated by greater than 150% between 2009 and 2023, throughout a interval when weight problems had doubled amongst women and men. The Survey’s cited coverage response really useful changing the proposed Indian Vitamin Ranking with warning labels, together with different measures.
The intervention was additionally a response to the federal government’s argument that India couldn’t merely replicate worldwide requirements. The courtroom refused that argument. “We don’t approve the stance of the Union when it says that it’s not potential to match with worldwide requirements,” the bench mentioned, asking whether or not India ought to stay “an underdeveloped nation”. It additionally added that the world ought to know India was involved in regards to the well being of its residents, notably rising kids.
The courtroom in the end gave the Union authorities and FSSAI two weeks to position their last choice on document, whereas warning that it may difficulty additional instructions if they didn’t act.
Additionally learn: ‘Last chance’: SC warns Centre it will pass directions if FSSAI fails to implement front-of-pack warning labels
How the proposal compares with others
The Supreme Courtroom’s August 13 order pointed to the expertise of Chile, Israel and Canada, whereas noting that front-of-pack labelling is internationally prevalent.
The FSSAI affidavit referred to the Chilean expertise specifically. Chile launched its warning-label system in phases. Within the first section in 2016, a product was labelled “excessive sugar content material” if it contained greater than 22.5 grams of sugar per 100 grams. By the third section in 2019, that threshold had been lowered to 10 grams per 100 grams. The affidavit says the change resulted in a considerable discount in shopper urge for food, throughout socioeconomic teams, for merchandise excessive in salt, sugar, saturated fats and energy.
HT had reported that scientific analysis and research on the efficacy of label warnings internationally had discovered advantage in introducing them as they deterred shoppers from buying extremely unhealthy processed meals, and in addition pushed producers to provide you with more healthy recipes for his or her merchandise.
Canada launched an analogous system in 2022, utilizing front-of-package vitamin symbols. The Canadian initiative, the courtroom famous, was aimed not solely at serving to shoppers make knowledgeable dietary selections but additionally at encouraging producers to reformulate merchandise for higher well being. This technique too offered for various categorisation and exemptions.
The broader worldwide image is that there isn’t a single international FoPL design. The World Well being Group (WHO) identifies front-of-pack labelling as a coverage device to make vitamin info simpler to interpret and assist shoppers make more healthy selections. It lists schemes adopted or being evaluated in international locations comparable to Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK, although it doesn’t prescribe any specific system.
India’s proposed method is subsequently nearer to warning labels than to a star-rating system. That’s vital as the patron just isn’t being requested to calculate whether or not a product is wholesome or unhealthy from a rating. The label is meant to offer a direct warning when particular thresholds are crossed.
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What may change for shoppers and meals business?
If carried out, the most important change may very well be the place and the way shoppers encounter vitamin info. The present detailed dietary info is designed to be learn and interpreted. The proposed FoPL would put a conspicuous warning on the entrance of the packet, doubtlessly influencing the acquisition choice earlier than the patron reads the back-of-pack desk.
For shoppers, the said goal is bigger readability. The Supreme Courtroom mentioned the worth of FoPL lies not merely in disclosure however in readability, drawing a distinction between being advised one thing and being knowledgeable about it.
For producers, the implications may prolong past packaging. The FSSAI’s phased method expressly recognises the necessity to give business time for reformulation, which means merchandise may very well be altered to scale back the portions of vitamins that set off warnings. The worldwide expertise cited by the courtroom means that warning programs can function not solely as consumer-information instruments but additionally as an incentive for producers to alter product composition.
On the identical time, the FSSAI proposal is simply the start of the regulatory course of. The regulator has mentioned the modifications might be introduced by way of amendments to the related laws after the prescribed process is adopted.
The Supreme Courtroom has, in the meantime, made clear that it sees the problem as greater than a query of packaging design. It linked the proper to well being with Article 21 — the basic proper to life — saying the constitutional assure of life carries a corresponding obligation on the State not solely to chorus from actions that impair well being but additionally to take affirmative steps to guard it. It additionally referred to Article 47, which casts an obligation on the State to enhance public well being as a major obligation.
The purple hexagon, it seems, might not merely be a brand new label. If the FSSAI proposal passes the Supreme Courtroom’s muster and the regulatory course of, it will mark a shift in India’s meals coverage.
