Packaged food likely to see FSSAI health star ratings after one year

This move by FSSAI will impact food companies, including Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Britannia, Nestle India, and Amul

The implementation of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI’s) health star rating (HSR) on packaged foods could take at least a year.

The statutory body established under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare hopes to get the government’s green light by July-August. The draft guidelines will be floated after requisite approvals are in place. Once all comments are collated, it will then propose an HSR to the scientific panel.

“We are looking at a minimum of one year for the HSR rating to be implemented,” said Arun Singhal, chief executive officer, FSSAI, adding, “The HSR format was recommended as the easiest to comprehend by the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) after conducting an extensive study among Indian consumers.”

Singhal also said that FSSAI may keep the HSR adoption voluntary in the initial phase for packaged food companies. The timeline for keeping it voluntary is still in the discussion stage. The study was conducted by IIM-A on the FSSAI’s directive.

The star rating will be displayed upfront on labels as the IIM-A’s study suggested that front-of-pack-labels (FoPLs) have the ability to push consumers towards healthy consumption habits with regard to packaged foods. The star rating will be based on the sugar, salt, and fat content in the packaged food item.

The IIM-A study stated in its summary: “It is now well established that FoPLs have the ability to nudge healthy consumption behaviour with respect to packaged foods.”

The study was conducted across major states, with over 20,000 participants asked which of the five formats was easiest to understand. The five formats offered as options were multiple traffic lights (MTL), monochrome GDA, nutri-score, warning labels, and HSR.

In its summary, the IIM-A observed: “Our results indicate that on average, the summary ratings of HSR and warning labels are in the highest pecking order, from the perspective of ease of identification, understanding, reliability, and influence.”

The study also noted that HSR appeared to be the most acceptable, outdoing the nutrient specific formats on ease of understanding. HSR finds greater support among the southern, central, and western regions of the country.

While HSR was the recommended FoPL suggested by the IIM-A, the study also said MTL was the most preferred when it came to reflecting necessary health information and presence of an unwanted nutrient.

It added that if changing purchase intention is the most desired, it recommended any of the five designs, with marginal preference for MTL.

“If the objective of introducing an FoPL is a careful combination of both ease of identification and understanding on the one hand and change of purchase intention on the other, we recommend HSR as the preferred FoPL,” the IIM-A said in its recommendations.

This move by FSSAI will impact food companies, including Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Britannia, Nestlé India, and Amul.