The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed colour-coded labelling for identifying unhealthy food. the draft notification stating this was released on June 27, 2019. It mandated packaged food companies to declare the quantity of salt, added sugar, saturated fats, trans fats, and calories on their product labels. A red-colour coding on the labels would indicate that salt, sugar, and saturated fat content in the product is beyond a certain threshold level. It is meant to warn about the high content of these ingredients so that they can opt for healthier products. A front-of-the-pack label proposed is to include information on the number of calories and the quantity of salt, added sugar, and fats per serving. The overall objective is to let consumers make an informed choice. Easy to identify, the red-colour code would overcome the literacy and language barriers across the country. This also goes well with the advocacy campaign, ‘Aaj Se Thoda Kam’ that FSSAI has been running to reduce the intake of salt and sugar to tackle diabetes and hypertension in the population. The label would include the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) per serving of the food. The draft regulation also requires manufacturers to mention the date of manufacture and the ‘best before’ date together.
A notable point in the draft rules relates to the Front-of-Pack (FoP) labelling that will help identify foods high in calories, depicting information on the number of calories and the quantity of salt, added sugar, and fats per serving. It has also been recommended that the FoP labels should reflect total sugar instead of added sugar and total fats instead of saturated fats and that the serving size should be standardised for effective implementation of these norms. This could help in bringing down the growing incidence of obesity, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases.
Till now, the food safety regulations did not even require packaged foods to mention the amount of salt they contained! Savouries splashed with salt, such as chips, namkeen, and pickles, did not have to mention the high sodium content in them. Moreover, the shelf life is not clearly mentioned on the product. Only the date of manufacture is mentioned in many of them; the consumer is required to calculate the shelf life after locating the ‘best before’ date.
According to the medical journal The Lancet, India had 30 million obese people in 2016 and the numbers are expected to cross 70 million by 2025. The World Health Organisation (WHO) views diabetes as a growing challenge in India, with an estimated 8.7 per cent diabetic population between the ages of 20 and 70 years. One of the factors contributing to this could be the rapid growth in the consumption of packaged food, caused due to a sharp increase in dual income levels and the standards of living and the preference for foods of convenience. A major shift in food habits in cities has resulted in about 79 per cent of households in metropolitan cities showing a preference for instant food, as per a survey by Assocham.
However, several players in the packaged food industry have expressed concerns regarding the implementation of the proposed labelling regulations, viewing them as neither scientific nor practical. as per values specified in the draft, almost 70 per cent of packaged food would get the red marking. As per the WHO, the daily recommendation of salt should be limited to less than 5 g of salt or 2000 mg of sodium. Shockingly, most savouries like ‘namkeens’, potato wafers, pickles, etc., are high in sodium content, some even containing 920 mg of sodium in a serving of 100 g!
Clearly, the system is not without its flaws, as it would over-simplify the nutritional value of the product through such labelling. Ghee, for example, would be labelled in ‘red’ due to its high fat content, but it has its own benefits. The red-colour code could raise undue concerns among the consumers.
Also, most popular indigenous food is high on fat, salt, and sugar, and the Indian food industry is dominated by such medium and micro enterprises. Therefore, many in the industry are vehemently opposing it.
According to Subodh Jindal, President of All India Food Processors’ Association (AIFPA), the regulations are neither scientific nor practical enough to be implemented. This is because the content of fat, salt, and sugar in packaged food depends on the customer’s taste requirement and not on manufacturers’ choice.
Overall, however, the draft regulations have been welcomed by consumers. In a press release issued by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, its director general Sunita Narain opined that this was a big step to enable people to identify unhealthy foods and would go a long way in containing the rising cases of obesity and diseases linked to it.
Even in an online poll, consumers came out with overwhelming support for the colour-coding scheme. All in all, this is definitely a positive step, but its implementation by the industry remains to be seen.
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