The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has told the Supreme Court that it has proposed introducing a prominent red warning label on the front of packaged food products that contain high levels of added saturated fat, added sugar and salt. The proposed label is intended to make it easier for consumers to identify products containing high amounts of specified nutrients of concern. FSSAI made the submission in a compliance affidavit filed before the apex court. Red hexagon to warn consumers about high nutrients Under the proposed system, a red-coloured hexagonal warning would appear on the front of food packages when a product contains high levels of at least two of the specified nutrients. “It is proposed to provide a prominent front-of-pack warning label in a red-coloured hexagonal shape for food products which are high in any two or more of the following nutrients of concern, namely added saturated fat, added sugar and salt, based on the thresholds specified under the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024 issued by ICMR-NIN,” the affidavit said. The warning would carry clear declarations such as “High Fat”, “High Sugar”, “High Salt” and/or “Highly Sweetened Beverage”, depending on the contents of the product. The aim is to allow consumers to identify products high in these nutrients at a glance.
FSSAI proposes phased rollout FSSAI said it had prepared a proposal to display information about added sugar, added fat and salt in pictorial form on the front of food packages. “The warning shall be displayed in a font size one point larger than that used in the nutrition information table on the back of the pack,” it said. The proposed front-of-pack nutrition labelling (FoPNL) system would be introduced in phases. FSSAI said the phased approach would give consumers time to adapt to the new labels while allowing food companies sufficient time to reformulate their products.
The first phase would cover products that are high in at least two of the specified nutrients — added fat, added sugar and salt — along with specified sweetened beverages. In the second phase, the warning would also apply to products that are high in any one of these nutrients. Certain foods proposed to be exempt FSSAI has proposed excluding some categories of products from the front-of-pack warning requirement. These would include single-ingredient food products and foods that are naturally high in fat, sugar or salt, such as ghee, edible oil, salt, sugar, jaggery and honey. However, these products would still have to comply with other applicable food safety and labelling requirements. For the proposed regulation, a product would be classified as high in fat, sugar and/or salt (HFSS) if it crosses the nutrient thresholds set under the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024, issued by ICMR-NIN (National Institute of Nutrition).
Proposal follows Supreme Court intervention The affidavit was submitted after the Supreme Court’s August 13 order in a case concerning mandatory front-of-package warning labels (FOPL) on packaged foods. The petition was filed by public charitable trust ‘3S and Our Health Society’, which has sought directions to the Centre, states and Union territories to make front-of-package warning labels mandatory for packaged food products. During the August 13 hearing, a bench comprising Justices J B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran criticised FSSAI over the delay in introducing warning labels and questioned whether the government “does not want its people to be healthy”. Red hexagon to feature on front of pack FSSAI said the proposed information would be displayed inside a ‘red hexagon’ on the front of food packages in the prescribed format. “The proposed approach is intended to address the need for an effective and consumer friendly FoP labelling mechanism and to facilitate informed food-choices, particularly in relation to children and other vulnerable group of the population,” the affidavit said. The authority clarified that the proposed system would have to go through the prescribed regulatory process before becoming mandatory.
“It is pertinent to mention that the same will be notified by way of an amendment in the respective regulations by following prescribed procedure,” it said. (With inputs from news agency PTI)
