In India, The Food Safety and Standard Authority of India’s proposal to give the food industry four years before mandating front-of-pack labeling and for setting high cutoffs for sugar, salt, and fat content in processed foods was criticized by a number of public health professionals and consumer groups. They wanted clear warning labels on the box of products containing excessive salt, sugar, and fat content. They accuse the authority of caring more about the welfare of the food industry than that of the citizens.

In a press conference, experts criticized the authority’s proposed Indian nutrition rating system, which would have assigned food a star grade rather than simple warning labels. The health risk posed by a bottle of fruit juice’s high sugar content is not diminished simply because it contains fruit juice. Simply adding fruits and nuts won’t lower the health risk associated with a chocolate bar’s high sugar and fat content.

Since 2012, there have been discussions about front-of-pack labeling, but the food industry has been fiercely opposed to it. After a decade of back and forth on this crucial public health measure to reduce consumption of ultra-processed food, the FSSAI now wants to give the industry four more years to comply with the absurdly re- laxed cut-offs for fat, sugar, and salt.

Arun Gupta, convenor of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPI).  Questioned, why not mandate it within a year since the industry can change packaging and ingredients in a matter of months.

According to the WHO standard, high fat, sugar, and salt foods are defined as processed foods where the amount of energy (kcal) from total sugar or total fat is 10% or more of the total energy and the amount of sodium is 1 mg or more per kilocalorie. However, it has set far higher reference values in its rating system for dietary risk factors. The food risk factor sugar has been capped at 21grams per 100 grams in solid foods, which is far higher than WHO’s norms, said epidemiologist HPS Sachdev. WHO’s guidelines are based on thoroughly researched nutrient profiles for food products in numerous regions, including Asia.