Food Safety and Standards Authority of India [FSSAI] approved an amendment to the Food Safety Standards Regulation 2020 [Business Standard 9 July 2024]. Accordingly, packaged foods will now have to display information regarding salt, sugar and saturated fat content in bold and relatively large font. The move has been driven by the fact that India is facing increasing levels of obesity and a diabetes crisis, triggered by improper dietary habits. The hope is that improving the information displayed will impart a greater level of consumer consciousness about the nutritional content of foods they put into their mouth. The big question is, will it make a difference? And when did all this start?
US authorities mandated the display of nutritional content on packaged foods in 1994; UK followed in 1998. It was a full ten years later that Indian authorities made it mandatory [though several global majors present in India had adopted the display practices earlier]. The move by the authorities in the US and UK was triggered by the alarming rise of lifestyle illnesses caused by improper dietary habits. In a sense nothing much has changed in 30 years, it seems.
While the intentions have been laudable, across the world there has been criticism about nutrition labelling calling it less visible, difficult to comprehend and of limited effectiveness. A variation of the back of pack nutrition label is the front of pack [FOP] display of health-star rating. In this Australasia system, foods are labelled as half star [not healthy] to five star [most healthy]. An expert committee set up by the FSSAI [Government of India] comprising of IIM Ahmedabad faculty did recommend a front of pack star system.
Global nutrition researchers have been trying to find out the impact of nutrition labelling. Has this led to widespread habit change? Are all consumers equally motivated by the information provided?
A study to classify consumers based on their food and health-related behavior, covering a third of a million consumers across 17 countries done by researchers revealed seven consumer segments (Livingstone S, Brand Strategy Feb 2006). There are the Compensators (10%), consumers who are very conscious about dieting and weight loss. Traditionalists (17%) are the group that generally feels very healthy; they have a regular healthy diet but rarely exercise. Go for it Guys (11%) are active young men who are very physique conscious; while they don’t worry about what they eat, they do exercise a lot. Carefree (15%) are young adults of both sexes, they are not into healthy eating but do a little bit of exercising. Sports Beer & BBQ (13%), these are older males who may play sports regularly but are not following a regular diet. Indulgers (15%), these people spend time in front of television (now may be a smartphone), they are more conscious of their kids and don’t worry about looking
good. Finally, there are the Disengaged (19%), this is the biggest segment that is least interested in their health or physical appearance. (Livingstone, 2006).
If we superimpose nutrition information availability on the various consumer segments we will see that some of them are a lost cause. They are least bothered about health and nutrition. But there are many out there who could be swayed by better information content on packaging: The Compensators and The Traditionalists. Add to them the Indulgers who may be swayed because of their concern about their children’s health. If you add these you get to a total of over 40%. That is a good start.
Then comes the issue of comprehending the information provided. Most packs provide information converted to 100 gms and per servings [approx. 28 gms]. Not many consumers can interpret this information to their daily consumption. Information like recommended daily % age is an attempt at simplifying the information [if you eat 28 gms of this pack of chips you will get 25% of your daily recommended dose of fats, for instance]. But not sure how many consumers can make the calculation and incorporate it into their daily habits. Finally, in India there is the challenge of English literacy; only around 10% of Indians can read English. For all the others the back-of-pack table is just a set of numbers. In this regard the Australasia system of ‘Star Rating’ seems to be a good solution. Electrical goods carry a ‘Star Rating’ of their power consumption and seems have been well accepted [further research is needed to confirm this].
The other challenge is that consumers know that not all goods are ‘healthy’ but they still consume them as indulgences. Indian sweets. Indian savories. Ice creams. Chocolates. All of them fall in this category. There is a fear that branding all of them ‘unhealthy’ could impact these sectors. So, should there be two categories: health foods [labelled as health foods carrying a star rating] and indulgences [that are labelled as fun foods without a star rating]
Two last points that should be relevant as we try and regulate the packaging of processed foods. It is widely reported that globally 30% of food gets wasted [some in the farm level, some on the way to the store and some at the stores / homes]. In India too over one third of all foods produced is wasted. Processing food is one way of reducing the waste [at least from farm to home]. As a country we should focus on ensuring that foods don’t get wasted at the farm level, or at storage or at transportation stages. We should be encouraging processed foods.
Finally, there is a need to bring about better nutritional awareness. There is a need to get the entire medical fraternity to become more nutrition conscious and ready to dispense nutrition information. A widespread media campaign along the lines of the Polio Vaccine campaign needs to be unveiled. These efforts need to be done on a sustained basis to bring about a significant attitude and behavior change.
Better nutrition labelling is just a start of this long and arduous journey. It is erroneous to assume all the change can happen with just a font size change. Changing consumer behaviour takes a lot more than that.
Appeared originally in Business Standard July 2024