Kamal Ghorui
Almost eight years after the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) put out the first draft regulation related to front of pack labelling (FOPL) of packaged food in 2018 for comments and suggestions, the authority is yet to finalise the regulation.In an affidavit dated March 13, on a May 2024 petition in the Supreme Court, FSSAI asked for six weeks to submit a proposal on labelling of packaged foods high in fat, sugar salt (HFSS) the consumption of which has been shown to cause non-communicable diseases.After organising five rounds of consultation with stakeholders including the food industry, the FSSAI informed the court that it was holding one more consultation with stakeholders on March 19 on “the proposed labels to be issued”.“The question of front-of-pack labelling has already been the subject of extensive consultations and technical deliberations over several years,” pointed out Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPi), a think tank of independent experts in epidemiology, nutrition and pediatrics, in a letter to the FSSAI. It added that FSSAI ought to consider proceeding with framing the FOPL regulation on the basis of the extensive consultations, available evidence and SC orders, rather than reopening the matter through additional stakeholder deliberations.The Supreme Court in its February 10 order had stated that “…we are of the view that whatever exercise has been undertaken so far has not yielded any positive or good result”. The court further pointed out that the PIL was filed to raise an important issue regarding the right to health of the citizens.FSSAI had organised a consultation in August 2018, followed by one in February 2022 in which all 17 industry associations voted for a star-rating system while all consumer organisations asked for warning labels.After an amended draft of the Food Safety and Standards (Labeling and Display) Regulations 2020 was put in public domain for objections and suggestions over 14,000 comments and suggestions were received from public and stakeholders. FSSAI had constituted an expert committee to analyse all the comments. In May 2025, the FSSAI organised four stakeholder consultations with food business operators and others in Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad and Kolkata. In October 2025, the food industry had submitted 430 representations to the food processing ministry in which they raised “serious concerns on the draft notification”. The parliamentary committee that brought out a report on food labelling regulation in December 2025 also heard various food industry associations and their representatives along with other stakeholders. “How many consultations will it take? The process for the regulation started in 2014, when FSSAI framed guidelines which included front-of-pack labelling specifying how much fat, sugar or salt it contained. How long does it take to bring in a regulation to protect public health interest? This is despite mounting evidence of rising incidence of non-communicable diseases and obesity, even among children, due to the consumption of packaged foods high in fats, salt and sugar,” asked Dr Arun Gupta, an NAPi member.
