Food security in India has gained widespread attention in public discourse over the past few years. The role of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the government has often been brought into question. The biggest concern has been raised about packaged foods and beverages, and the concealment of crucial information.
A fresh report reveals that a Fanta in Europe has three times less sugar content than the Fanta sold in India. The artificial dye is an added ingredient without a health warning.
In Europe, the presence of dye requires a prominent health warning, while in India a small print on the back of the can is enough. The Indian leniency suits the world's biggest companies.
The front-packaging warning has long been resisted by these big companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle and others.
The FSSAI in August said that it had abandoned a push for colourful warnings on the front as such labels do not account for how Indian cuisine has more intense flavours than Western food.
The food regulator instead proposed to display a black-and-white table of sugar, fat and salt content.
The decision has come under scrutiny as the Supreme Court is hearing a petition against the decision. The plea has been filed by public health activists.
The rampant sale of sugary and fatty products puts 45 crore Indians at risk of getting overweight or obese by 2050, as per a study published in the Lancet journal.
The food regulator had planned to mandate more transparent and responsible packaging to push healthier eating habits, but it buckled after a tense meeting with industry executives in March.
News agency Reuters reported that the industry argued that such warning labels were confusing and ineffective. This is the first time that the details of the meetings are being reported.
The executives urged the regulator to focus on encouraging portion control. The report quoted Coca-Cola India executive Mili Bhattacharya telling the FSSAI that it is very simplistic to believe that a consumer who does not read ingredient lists will become informed by seeing the symbols and icons to improve their diets.
However, Coca-Cola and its bottling partners in Europe have voluntarily added traffic-light style labels to their drinks in two dozen markets.
The Nestle story
Another big company is Nestle, which has fought the regulator over similar proposals but has voluntarily used interpretive labels in Britain since 2013.
KitKat, another prominent product in Indian has 4.5 per cent cocoa solids, while the milk chocolate in the Australian version contains at least 22 per cent cocoa.
Similarly, all variants of Maggi in India are made with palm oil, while the British version uses pricier sunflower oil even when many of the packets sold in Britain are made in India.
These British packets carry a red front-of-pack label warning of their high salt content, which is still missing in the Indian version.
The problem is even bigger as industry estimates suggest that around 80 per cent or 4 in five of food and beverage products made in India's over $100 billion market could be regarded as high in fat, sugar and salt.
Recommended For You
Speaking at the March meeting with FSSAI, Deepak Jolly of the Ind Food & Beverage Association said that packaging in the country would be awash in red if colour-coded warning labels are adopted.