By Rishi Agrawal
Imagine a packet on a supermarket shelf with the word “wholesome” on the front. A few centimetres away, a red hexagon says “High Sugar”. Which one should a consumer believe? That is the question India’s food industry is about to face. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed a red hexagonal warning on packaged foods that are high in two or more of added sugar, salt and saturated fat. The Supreme Court, which pushed the regulator to act, is set to review the proposal on September 10.
The warning itself is a welcome step. Consumers need a simple signal they can understand in the few seconds they spend looking at a pack. But the proposal leaves out one important part, and that could create as much confusion as the label is meant to remove.
The hexagon tells companies what they need to put on the front of the pack. But it says nothing about the claims they can make elsewhere. Can a product carrying a “High Salt” warning still be advertised as “nutritious” on television? Can it carry a “high protein” claim right next to the hexagon? Can an old tagline about “goodness” continue to appear on billboards? The proposal does not answer these questions.
That matters because the pack is only one part of how a brand speaks to consumers. The television ad, e-commerce listing, influencer post and a slogan people have heard for years can have just as much, or even more, influence. Food companies have spent years building products around health-related claims. If a warning now appears next to those claims, the two messages could end up saying very different things.
Without clear rules, these issues could end up being decided by advertising watchdogs, consumer courts and social media, one case at a time. Companies could face questions over advertising they did not know would be considered misleading. Consumers, meanwhile, would be left trying to work out which message to trust, the brand’s promise or the regulator’s warning.
There is another source of confusion. The hexagon appears only when a product crosses two thresholds. A cereal that is high in sugar alone would get no warning. A nearly identical cereal that is high in both sugar and salt would get one. The first could continue to present itself as healthy, while the second would carry a warning. The sugar level could be the same, but the message to the consumer would be very different.
There is also the question of products that are high in naturally occurring sugars. If the thresholds are based on added sugar, a fruit juice with a high amount of natural sugar could escape the warning while still carrying a “no added sugar” claim. Consumers could start seeing the absence of a hexagon as a sign that a product is healthy, even when that may not be the case.
Countries such as Chile and Mexico have gone beyond warning labels. They have also introduced rules on what products carrying these warnings can and cannot claim. The warning and the rules on claims work together. Otherwise, a red warning next to a health claim can leave consumers unsure about which message to believe.
FSSAI has proposed the warning, but not these additional rules on claims. The fix is not complicated. The claims rules should be published along with the hexagon, not later. They should clearly say which words and claims a product carrying the warning cannot use, both on the pack and in advertising. Companies should also get a reasonable transition period to phase out existing advertising and taglines. Consumers should also be told clearly why two nutrients trigger a warning while one does not.
Industry can adapt to a red hexagon. The bigger problem is having a rule that applies to one part of a product’s communication while leaving everything else open to interpretation. Consumers should not have to choose between a regulatory warning and the word “healthy” sitting right next to it.
The author is Co-founder & CEO, Teamlease Regtech
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.