New Delhi, Nov 18 (TIWN): RSS-affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has raised questions on the FSSAI’s move to introduce ‘health star ratings’ on the front-pack-labels of food items, saying that the food safety regulator should instead put cautionary warnings for an informed choice.

“For example, if front of the pack of an item has warning labels, a diabetes patient or a patient of high blood pressure would be able to decide whether he should buy or not,” Mahajan said when asked for his comment.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has reportedly started a move to introduce health star ratings (HSR) on the front of the pack labels of packaged food and beverages.

The move was discussed at a stakeholders meeting, presided over by the food safety regulator’s CEO Arun Singhal on February 15, which agreed that the system “may be incorporated in the draft regulations”.

“From the minutes of the meeting it is evident that while taking a decision that each food should be rated from one to five stars, the FSSAI has chosen to ignore consumer interest and has given undue importance to the opinion of large food processing industries,” the SJM co-convenor said.

According to the minutes of the meeting, George Cheriyan from CUTS International and Amit Khurana from the CSE opposed the recommendation for use of HSR Model in India citing the “positive connotation” underlying the star system that may mislead the consumer.

“ … health star ratings are taken with a positive connotation and do not meet the intention of FOPL (front-of-pack-label) regarding warning for negative nutrients, which may be overwhelmed by positive nutrients in the algorithm design for HSR,” they said.

Consumer Voice CEO Ashim Sanyal said at the meeting the AIIMS-UNC was also carrying out a study on the FOPL and suggested that the FSSAI should wait for its report, expected to come “shortly”, before taking any decision.

At the meeting, the industry associations “appreciated” the study conducted by the IIM Ahmedabad and “expressed willingness” to go along with its recommendations.