India reworks front-of-pack nutrition labelling plans

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has yet to finalise the country’s long-running front-of-pack nutrition labelling regime, with the latest policy direction moving away from the conspicuous colour-coded warnings previously advocated for foods high in sugar, saturated fat, or salt. The eventual format remains unresolved, leaving manufacturers without a final specification for one of the most visible parts of a food pack.

India has been working on front-of-pack nutrition labelling for several years. A 2022 draft amendment proposed an Indian Nutrition Rating system built around simplified front-panel information and a half-star to five-star assessment of packaged foods, using energy, total sugars, saturated fat, sodium, and selected positive nutrients in the calculation.

That draft established the principle that simplified nutrition information should appear close to a product’s name or brand on the principal display panel. It did not settle the wider argument over whether consumers should receive a summary rating, numerical nutrient information, or explicit warnings when products exceed defined thresholds.

Current reporting indicates that more prominent warning concepts have lost ground during the policy process, with a black-and-white nutrient presentation being considered instead of the red or colour-coded approach sought by some health campaigners. The regulatory process has involved extensive submissions from multinational and domestic food businesses, public-health organisations, and other stakeholders, and no final warning system has yet been put into force.

That uncertainty creates a practical packaging problem. Large food manufacturers can operate hundreds of product lines across several pack sizes, languages, factories, and sales channels. A mandatory front-panel change can therefore produce thousands of individual artwork revisions once films, cartons, labels, pouches, sleeves, multipacks, and promotional formats are included.

Artwork changes also consume physical manufacturing resources. Printed flexible packaging may require new gravure cylinders or flexographic plates, while carton and label suppliers need revised files, proofs, approvals, and production slots. Existing packaging stocks have to be run down or written off, and factories need a controlled changeover date so old and new material do not become mixed in warehouses or on packing lines.

The format ultimately selected will determine how disruptive that exercise becomes. A relatively compact monochrome information panel creates different space and design requirements from a large warning symbol placed prominently on the front of the pack. On smaller products, front-panel area is already divided between mandatory declarations, branding, legal names, quantity statements, claims, and consumer information.

There is also a formulation consequence. A warning system based on nutrient thresholds can create a direct commercial incentive to reduce sugar, sodium, or saturated fat sufficiently to avoid an adverse front-panel declaration. That turns a labelling regulation into a product-development target, although changing those ingredients is rarely as straightforward as reducing the number shown in a recipe.

Sugar contributes bulk, colour development, texture, freezing-point control, preservation, and water activity as well as sweetness. Salt can affect preservation and flavour perception, while fats influence mouthfeel, structure, aeration, heat transfer, and shelf stability. Reformulation can consequently require changes to sweeteners, fibres, starches, emulsifiers, flavour systems, process conditions, or packaging barriers before a product performs like its predecessor.

Manufacturers also have to establish whether revised recipes remain stable on existing equipment. Dough behaviour, viscosity, depositing, baking, extrusion, homogenisation, freezing, filling, and sealing can all change when major ingredients are reduced or replaced. A label-driven reformulation can therefore become a processing project involving line trials, shelf-life work, sensory testing, and new supplier specifications.

The current debate sits alongside changes already made to India’s nutrition-information rules. A 2025 draft amendment proposed that per-serving contributions to recommended dietary allowances for added sugar, saturated fat, and sodium should be shown in bold with relatively increased font sizes, illustrating another route towards making selected nutrient information more prominent without using warning symbols.

FSSAI has also tightened its treatment of voluntary claims elsewhere on the front panel. The regulator has acted against the use of “100%” wording on packaging and advertising, arguing that absolute language can create misleading impressions of purity or superiority. That enforcement has already forced manufacturers to review packaging claims independently of the still-unresolved nutrition-labelling programme.

International manufacturers face an additional artwork-management burden because front-of-pack systems vary widely between markets. A package designed around Indian requirements cannot automatically be transferred to another country, while a global master artwork may need substantial modification to accommodate local nutrient calculations, language, mandatory statements, and symbol dimensions.

The Indian market is large enough for those changes to matter well beyond local converters. Food groups sourcing printed packaging through regional or global networks will need capacity for new plates, cylinders, approval cycles, and stock transitions once the final regulation emerges. Suppliers of label-management software and automated artwork checking will also have a role where companies are changing large SKU portfolios simultaneously.

The immediate position remains less definite than the earlier debate sometimes suggests. India has not adopted the prominent red-warning regime that was once under discussion, but neither has the country completed its front-of-pack labelling programme. Manufacturers therefore have a direction of travel without the final technical specification needed to begin a full artwork conversion.

That leaves regulatory, formulation, and packaging teams working against an unsettled target. Once FSSAI publishes an enforceable final format, the debate will move rapidly from policy into ordinary factory work — revised recipes where necessary, redesigned packs, controlled material run-downs, and enough printing and converting capacity to put compliant products onto shelves by the implementation date.