FSSAI’s Star Rating:
The “health star rating” system that the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) plans to adopt in order to help consumers reduce their intake of unhealthy foods has been opposed by close to a dozen consumer and health advocacy groups.
- In February 2022, the FSSAI decided to adopt the “health-star rating system”, which gives a product 1/2 a star to 5 stars, in its draft regulations for front of package labelling (FOPL).
- It aims to help consumers reduce their intake of unhealthy foods.
- The HSR format ranks a packaged food item based on salt, sugar, and fat content and the rating will be printed on the front of the package.
- The underlying premise of the HSR is that positive ingredients such as fruits and nuts can offset negative nutrients such as calories, saturated fat, total sugar, sodium to calculate the number of stars ascribed to a product.
- All packaged food items or processed food will have the HSR label.
- These will include chips, biscuits, namkeen, sweets and chocolates, meat nuggets, and cookies.
- Exemptions: However, milk and its products such as chenna and ghee are EXEMPTED as per the FSSAI draft notified in 2019.
