Empowering consumers

The proposed food regulation will help them

In a welcome development last week, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) approved an amendment to the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020. Accordingly, packaged food items will display information regarding salt, total sugar, and saturated fat in a bold and relatively big font. It’s not that the bits of information are not available in packaged food, but they are often in small fonts, and hence easy to miss. The move, predictably, is to empower consumers to make informed decisions. The draft notification for the amendment would be put in the public domain for suggestions and comments from stakeholders. While the FSSAI would want to see what other stakeholders such as companies involved in the business have to say, the proposed amendments are worth implementing.

This is critical because of several reasons. As India grows at a rapid pace and gets urbanised, more and more people are likely to consume packaged food because of a variety of reasons. Given the easy availability of packaged food, more children seem to be consuming packaged snacks and other such food items, which can significantly increase health risks. For instance, according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s “World Obesity Atlas” (2022), India is expected to have over 27 million obese children by 2030, making for 10 per cent of such children globally. While India has a large number of malnourished children, the proportion of overweight children is also beginning to climb. The FSSAI thus rightly expects the proposed changes to improve public health and well-being, and help combat non-communicable diseases.

Although the FSSAI must be commended for being proactive in this regard, just mentioning the nutritional information in a relatively big font would be of limited use if consumers don’t understand what they mean and when things start becoming unsafe. To be fair, while per-serve percentage contribution to the recommended dietary allowances would be available in bold for total saturated fat, sodium content, and sugar, it will be important to increase mass awareness. Departments dealing with public health at both the Centre and in states would be well advised to run public campaigns to spread awareness. Better food choices will also help reduce the pressure on health systems.

The other issue is to tightly regulate what goes into packaged food. This is where the food regulator needs to be more active. For instance, Indians got to know that popular spice brands had harmful substances only when they were tested in foreign countries. It was exposed by a foreign non-governmental organisation that a popular brand of baby food was using extra sugar in developing countries like India. It was only after an internet influencer’s revelation that e-commerce websites were advised not to list certain brands in the health drink category. Thus, it is critical that the food regulator not only make it clear as to what is permissible but also ensure that all companies in the food business follow the guidelines. The regulator needs to ensure all companies play by the rules of the game. This is not only critical for public health in India, but processed food and related items can be a big export opportunity, which will benefit the entire value chain and help create employment. The percentage share of processed food in total agriculture food exports nearly doubled between 2014-15 and 2022-23 to about 26 per cent. Following global standards in food regulation will increase opportunities.