IN Brief:
- FSSAI proposes red hexagonal warnings initially for products high in two or more specified nutrients and certain sweetened beverages.
- The Supreme Court has asked for clarification on thresholds, phasing, dimensions, placement, colour, nutrient definitions, and separate versus combined warnings.
- FSSAI was ordered to file a further response within ten days of the 10 September hearing.
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has been ordered to clarify substantial parts of its proposed front-of-pack nutrition warning system after the country’s Supreme Court questioned the scientific basis, design, phasing, and eventual compliance route behind the new labels.
The regulator has proposed red hexagonal warnings for packaged foods containing high levels of specified nutrients of concern. Under its current approach, the first phase would cover foods high in two or more of added fat, added sugar, and salt, together with specified sweetened beverages. A second phase would extend warnings to products exceeding the threshold for any one of those nutrients.
The warning would carry declarations such as HIGH FAT, HIGH SUGAR, HIGH SALT, or HIGHLY SWEETENED BEVERAGE. FSSAI has proposed lettering one point larger than the type used in the nutrition information panel, while exempting some single-ingredient foods and products inherently rich in fat, sugar, or salt.
The proposal represents a substantial change from the position manufacturers faced only weeks earlier. India’s front-of-pack regime remained unsettled in late August, with the final prominence and format of nutrition information still under debate. The red-hexagon model now gives packaging and formulation teams a clearer direction, but several of the parameters needed to implement it remain undefined.
The court focused first on FSSAI’s decision to begin with products high in two or more nutrients of concern. A product exceeding the proposed threshold for sugar alone, for example, could initially remain outside Phase I even where the excess is substantial. The judges have asked the regulator to explain the scientific basis for that distinction.
The timetable between the two phases is similarly unresolved. FSSAI says phasing is intended to allow consumer acceptance and give industry time for reformulation, but it has not fixed the interval between the first and second stages. The court has requested a clear timetable rather than an open-ended transition.
That detail affects far more than artwork scheduling. A manufacturer trying to move a product below a warning threshold may have to change ingredients, nutritional calculations, process settings, sensory characteristics, shelf-life validation, supplier specifications, and packaging declarations before a revised recipe can enter production.
Sugar can influence bulk, texture, water activity, colour development, freezing behaviour, and preservation as well as sweetness. Fat affects structure, mouthfeel, aeration, heat transfer, and processing behaviour, while salt contributes flavour and can influence microbiological stability. Removing enough of any one component to cross a regulatory threshold can therefore force adjustments elsewhere in the formulation.
The Supreme Court has specifically asked FSSAI to consider the possibility that reductions in sugar, fat, or salt could lead manufacturers to increase the use of preservatives, emulsifiers, or other additives. It has also questioned whether the eventual calculation should use added sugar or total sugar, added fat or saturated fat, and how trans fat should be treated.
Packaging design remains equally incomplete. FSSAI has stated how the warning text should compare with the nutritional panel’s font size but has not yet defined the dimensions of the hexagon itself, whether it should scale with the principal display panel, or where it must be positioned on the pack.
Those choices become difficult on small-format products, where branding, product name, quantity declarations, vegetarian or non-vegetarian symbols, date information, claims, and other legal content already compete for limited front-panel space. A warning occupying a defined percentage of the principal display area would create a different artwork problem from a fixed-size symbol.
The court has also queried the use of a single composite hexagon for products exceeding more than one nutrient threshold. It has asked why HIGH SUGAR and HIGH FAT, for example, should appear together inside one symbol rather than in separate warning hexagons that identify each nutrient independently.
Colour is under review as well. FSSAI’s proposed warning is red, but red is already associated in India with non-vegetarian food identification. The court has asked whether that established visual convention could create confusion and whether the warning colour should be reconsidered.
The judges have additionally raised accessibility. A warning system based mainly on written declarations assumes that consumers can read and interpret the wording quickly. FSSAI has been asked to examine whether pictorial representations of fat, sugar, and salt should accompany the words, particularly across a market with wide differences in language and literacy.
Final transition arrangements have yet to be settled. The court wants FSSAI to state whether manufacturers will receive a voluntary compliance period after the regulations are notified and, if so, how long that period will last. Packaging inventories, pre-printed films and cartons, retailer approvals, recipe trials, and line validations will all influence how quickly large portfolios can be converted.
The questions now before FSSAI turn front-of-pack labelling into a detailed production specification rather than a broad nutrition-policy concept. Threshold values determine whether recipes change; hexagon dimensions determine whether artwork changes; phasing determines when factories and packaging suppliers have to act.
FSSAI was ordered to file a further affidavit within ten days of the 10 September order. Until those answers arrive, the direction of travel is considerably clearer than it was in August, but manufacturers still lack several of the measurements and deadlines needed to translate the proposed red warning into a controlled factory and packaging change.
