New Delhi: Over a week after India’s food regulator FSSAI proposed red-hexagon front-of-package warnings on foods high in sugar, salt and fat, consumer welfare and public health groups have raised several objections, including that several products with harmful nutrients could escape the warning system.
These groups said that the proposed system also leaves key questions about how the thresholds to trigger the warning would work, and when the full system will come into force.
In a rejoinder filed before the Supreme Court on 5 September, advocate Rajiv Shankar Dwivedi, representing petitioner 3S and Our Health Society, welcomed the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s move from a numerical front-of-pack label to a visual warning, but said several concerns raised earlier remained unresolved.
The petitioner said the proposed system “fires only on double trigger”, because the first phase would require a product to be high in at least two of the three nutrients—sugar, salt and saturated fat—before it gets the label.
“A warning label that fires only on double trigger helps no one and it merely dresses the same gap in new colours,” the rejoinder said.
On 28 August, the FSSAI filed a compliance affidavit proposing red hexagons front-of-pack label, carrying the words “HIGH FAT”, “HIGH SUGAR”, “HIGH SALT” or “HIGHLY SWEETENED BEVERAGE” on certain packaged foods.
The proposal followed a 13 August Supreme Court order directing the Union government, in consultation with experts, to decide on the visual appearance of the front-of-pack label, including the use of coloured indicators, words, numbers, letters and symbols.
The consumer groups have objected to the two-nutrient trigger, the use of “added sugar” and “added saturated fat”, the absence of a deadline for a second phase, and the proposed size and design of the warnings.
Dr Arun Gupta, convenor of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest India (NAPi), a coalition of 29 consumer and public health organisations, said the red-hexagon warning was a step forward, but warning labels requiring a product to be high in two or more nutrients created a major loophole.
“A product with high sugar carries no warning if it is low in fat and salt. That is not public health; that is regulatory capture. Further, the definition of HFSS (High Fat, Sugar and Salt) is critical to include total sugar and fats,” he said.
The case has been before the Supreme Court since 2024, when 3S and Our Health Society sought mandatory front-of-pack warnings for packaged foods high in fat, sugar and salt.
On 10 February 2026, the court criticised the progress made by the FSSAI, saying the exercise undertaken so far had “not yielded any positive or good result” and asked the regulator to consider warning-label systems used internationally.
On 13 August, the court directed the Union government to decide, in consultation with experts, on the visual appearance of the front-of-pack label, including coloured indicators, words, numbers, letters, symbols and numerical information.
The FSSAI subsequently filed its 28 August compliance affidavit proposing the red-hexagon system.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the matter on 10 September.
Also read: 80 % consumers say FSSAI should mandate labels on fat and sugar
The ‘two or more’ threshold issue
As per the FSSAI proposal, the FoP warning system will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase, a warning label is triggered only when a product is high in two or more of the three nutrients of concern (added saturated fat, added sugar, and salt).
This means a product very high in sugar could escape a warning if it does not also cross the threshold for fat or salt. The petitioner said this could leave products with a significant amount of one harmful nutrient outside the warning system.
The rejoinder argues that sugar, salt and saturated fat can each pose health risks independently.
A product should, therefore, not have to cross the threshold for two nutrients before consumers are warned, the petitioner argues.
“The two-or-more threshold is, in substance, a redefinition of what ‘High in Fat, Sugar and/or Salt’ means, and the redefinition runs against the science, not merely against the drafting,” the rejoinder noted.
Excess sugar is linked to diabetes and metabolic disease, excess salt to hypertension, and excess saturated fat to cardiovascular disease and adverse cholesterol.
“None of these three requires the presence of the other two to cause harm,” the petitioner said.
The rejoinder gives the example of a product containing 50 grams of sugar, described in the filing as 200 percent of the daily limit, but low levels of fat and salt. Such a product would not receive a warning under Phase I.
The petitioner points to Chile, Mexico, Canada and Israel, where front-of-pack warnings can be triggered by individual nutrients of concern.
No deadline for Phase 2
As per the FSSAI, the second phase would extend the warning label to products high in any one of these nutrients. The phased rollout, the food regulator said, would give the industry adequate time to reformulate products.
But the 28 August affidavit does not specify when that phase would begin.
The petitioner said a phased rollout may give manufacturers time to reformulate, but there must be a fixed deadline for moving to the more comprehensive system.
“The purported reason for the phasing is that the industry should have time for reformulation.. more than time, it is important for the industry to have a reason for reformulation,” the rejoinder said.
It cites Israel’s phased warning-label system as an example of how thresholds can be introduced within a defined period.
The petitioner has urged the Supreme Court to direct the FSSAI to complete Phase II within 12 months of Phase I.
Without a binding date, the filing said, the second phase could become an indefinite postponement.
‘Added’ tag, a problem
The FSSAI’s proposed thresholds are based on added sugar and added saturated fat. The consumer groups say this does not match the approach reflected in the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition’s Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024.
The guidelines provide thresholds for total sugar and total fat per 100 grams, rather than only their added forms.
Referring to the minutes of a FSSAI stakeholder meeting held on 30 June 2021, the rejoinder said the meeting recorded a consensus that “Total Sugars” would be a workable metric because added sugar cannot be independently verified once different ingredients have been mixed into a finished product.
The petitioners say that the FSSAI has not explained why it moved away from that earlier position.
The petitioner argues that focusing only on added sugar could allow products containing large amounts of naturally occurring sugar to avoid a warning.
It cites fruit juice concentrate as an example, saying processing can concentrate sugars already present in fruit.
Jaggery is another example cited in the filing. A product containing jaggery could claim “zero added sugar” while still containing substantial amounts of sugar.
“A metric that lets a product built almost entirely of sugar escape a high-sugar warning may not be seen as a safeguard for the consumer,” the rejoinder said.
It has raised a similar objection to “added saturated fat”, saying the 2021 stakeholder discussions considered saturated fat rather than “added saturated fat”.
The petitioner also flags an inconsistency in the proposed wording. While the threshold refers to “added saturated fat”, the warning proposed on the front of the pack says “HIGH FAT”.
This could confuse consumers because the nutrient of concern is saturated fat, rather than fat in general, the petitioner said.
Can consumers actually see the warning
The petitioner has also questioned whether the proposed warning will be large enough to attract attention.
The FSSAI said the warning text should be one point larger than the font used in the back-of-pack nutrition table.
The rejoinder argued that this may still leave the warning too small because nutrition tables can use fonts of about 6 to 8 points. “The warning label should be prominent and visible from a distance and must not be barely larger than fine print,” it said.
The petitioners have also asked for sufficient contrast between the red warning and the rest of the packaging.
Under the FSSAI’s proposal, two warning messages could appear inside one hexagon. The petitioner said that if a product is high in two or three nutrients, consumers should see separate hexagons for each one.
“The presence of two dangerous contents should have ideally resulted in two warning hexagons so that the consumer is aware of the ‘healthiness’ of the product from far itself,” the rejoinder said.
The petitioner has further sought mandatory warnings in both English and Hindi, arguing that the purpose of a front-of-pack warning is to allow consumers to understand a health risk without having to interpret technical information.
The petitioners have also asked the FSSAI to consider whether other concerns, including emulsifiers, colours, preservatives and total energy, should eventually be covered by front-of-pack warnings.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: India needs warning labels on junk food. FSSAI’s resistance makes no sense