NEW FSSAI RULES FOR PACKAGED FOOD LABELING

In the spirit of what Benjamin Franklin once said – “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” – the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) released a draft notification on June 27 2019 seeking to place a mandate on packaged food companies to label high fat, high sugar and high salt content on the front of the package, using a traffic light signalling system. The overall objective is to let consumers make an informed choice.

One of the most notable points in the draft rules relates to the Front-of-Pack (FoP) labelling; in particular, a ‘red-coloured’ warning symbol that will help identify foods high in calories, saturated fats, trans fats, added sugar and salt. The proposed FoP label will also tell consumers about the number of calories and quantity of salt, added sugar and fats per serve. Consumers can directly see how much of their recommended dietary allowance will be exhausted if they eat one serve of the packaged food.

Why is this important?

Obesity — being grossly fat and overweight – with all the associated risks of hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as well as the many resulting psychological effects such as depression, low self-esteem and low confidence, are rising concerns worldwide today. The story is no different in India. According to medical journal “The Lancet,” India had 30 million obese people in 2016 and the numbers are expected to cross 70 million by 2025.

Overall, however, the draft regulations have been welcomed by consumers. In a press release issued by the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, its director general Sunita Narain said, “This is a big step, which will enable people to identify unhealthy foods that are high in fats, sugar or salt. It should help to contain the growing incidence of obesity and non-communicable diseases.” In an online poll through our Facebook page FoodSafetyWorks, consumers came out with overwhelming support to implement the colour coding scheme. The data of course is limited to the audience we were able to reach out to.

Update: 18th Dec 2019: Center for Science and Environment (CSE) released a report on labeling saga on how we have failed to make any progress on this even after 6 years, 3 committees and after 5 months since the 2019 notification, which happens to be a much more water downed version of the 2018 draft regulation. A lot of new data is now available from other countries who have implemented this and hopefully we can learn from them and pick a better system that is useful to the consumer and can help me make the right choice. You can watch the complete video of the press conference here.

Read the full article –http://citizenmatters.in/food-safety-standards-authority-colour-coded-labelling-of-packaged-food-13810 . Article written by Disha Majhi, works as Senior Associate Consultant for Food Safety Works.For more food safety related articles and upcoming training visit http://foodsafetyworks.com