What is inside your food packet and, more importantly, what is not clearly indicated on its front, is now before the Supreme Court. A public interest petition (W.P.(C) No. 437/2024), filed by ‘3S and Our Health Society’ in 2024 had sought mandatory front-of-pack warning labels on packaged foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fats. The petition was disposed in April 2025 after food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) undertook to work on amendments to its labelling regulations.
When the matter returned to the Court in February 2026, justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan were unimpressed by the regulator’s progress. The Court said the exercise so far, had produced no ‘positive or good result’. It noted that the issue concerned citizens’ Constitutional right to health under Article 21 and did something unprecedented. It went beyond expressing dissatisfaction and reproduced a visual graphic mock-up directly into its written order, depicting bold red warning circles for products high in sugar, sodium and saturated fats.
FSSAI has, nevertheless, continued to pursue a disclosure-based approach, preferred by industry, rather than the explicit warning-label system sought by the petitioners. Its affidavit proposes a non-interpretive tabular display of ‘Recommended Daily Allowances’ alongside serving size. In practice, this leaves consumers, who already struggle to decipher ingredients in tiny print, doing mental arithmetic in supermarket aisles—or peering into apps—to work out how much sugar, salt or saturated fat a product actually contains. A label is supposed to make information clearer, not turn the consumer into a nutrition calculator. Public-health campaigner Dr Arun Gupta, convenor of Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest (NAPi), has challenged FSSAI and industry’s philosophy of poor disclosure on social media through an evocatively titled campaign, Packet ke Andar Kya Hai?
Long Battle
The battle to make the regulator perform its role as a guardian of public health, rather than become an enabler of misleading claims by powerful corporations, has been long and largely unsuccessful. It is an issue we highlighted 12 years ago. In October 2014, Moneylife’s cover story titled "Food Poison" exposed how packaged food manufacturers systematically hooked consumers on ultra-processed foods loaded with hidden sugars, excessive salt, dangerous trans fats, carcinogenic food colouring and chemical additives that were hidden behind alpha-numeric codes.
They made deceptive claims, touted fibre content or added vitamins while concealing ingredients that fuelled lifestyle diseases diabetes. Twelve years later, the basic question before the Supreme Court remains the same: Why should a consumer have to decipher the back of a packet to discover something that could be made obvious on the front?
FSSAI claimed it was aligning with the Indian council of medical research (ICMR)-national institute of nutrition's 2024 ‘Dietary Guidelines for Indians’, but it selectively adopted daily nutrient caps while ignoring Table 15.1 of those very guidelines which prescribe clear thresholds based on 100gm (grams) of solid food or 100ml (millilitres) of liquid.
By shifting the disclosure metric from a standardised 100gm base to variable serving sizes, FSSAI handed food manufacturers a classic loophole. A manufacturer can simply reduce the recommended serving size on paper to make a sugar-laden snack appear well within safe limits, passing the burden of calculation onto the consumer. Asking a parent buying snacks to calculate percentage daily allowances across multiple ingredients in a short purchase window is not consumer empowerment; it is deliberate obfuscation. The tiny print in which ingredients are listed is already a big challenge.
Interestingly, FSSAI’s compliance affidavit admits that a majority of food industry organisations vehemently opposed warning labels and wanted a system that informs without creating fear. Dr Arun Gupta, who attended that consultation, had submitted detailed scientific evidence refuting industry claims, but these were simply set aside to accommodate big industry. Why do these labels matter? Because the industry works hard at misleading us.
Malt drinks for children are marketed as growth and immunity boosters; yet, some contain 30%–50% added sugar per 100gm which would trigger a red warning label.
‘100% fruit’ juices are promoted for their vitamin content, but can contain around 25gm of free sugar in a 200ml serving, without the natural fibre found in whole fruit.
Flavoured yoghurt, marketed as a probiotic, gut-health food, can contain as much as 18gm of added sugar per 100gm.
Baked or non-fried namkeen may advertise ‘0% trans fat’ or ‘low calorie’, while saying little about sodium levels that can reach 800mg–1,000mg (milligram)/100gm.
Muesli and granola can carry a ‘whole grain’ health halo while containing as much as 25gm of sugar per 100gm.
The industry's panic over red warning badges is understandable. A clear red symbol indicating excessive sugar or salt would act as an immediate stop sign for parents. In contrast, a star-rating model from half a star to five stars, will allow several workarounds to offset proper disclosure.
The contrast is telling. While FSSAI will apparently police deceptive wording on packaging and in brand names, it fiercely resists graphic front-of-pack warning labels on food products that are causing a public health crisis. Is the crackdown on marketing claims a mere distraction? Remember, the Dabur order has since been stayed by the Delhi High Court.
Mumbai Study
The Indian food lobby argues that front-of-pack warning system that works in Europe and Latin America cannot be applied to India, because of our unique cultural and demographic conditions. Dr Arun Gupta points to a landmark peer-reviewed study published in World Nutrition which examined 120 adolescents aged 13 to 18 in Mumbai to evaluate how Indian teenagers respond to different front-of-pack labelling formats. It tested four clear models: explicit Red Warning Labels, Health Star Rating, NutriScore, and a control group with no front-of-pack label.
The findings were clear. Those presented with explicit warning labels selected the healthy food option 80% of the time; when presented with Health Star Ratings, healthy choices dropped to 66.7%; they dropped further to 56.7% with NutriScores and only 33.3% in the control chose healthy options when there were no labels.
This experimental evidence aligns with recommendations from the Economic Survey, Parliamentary committee reports and independent organisationsthat Indian consumers need immediate, high-visibility warning badges.
They have also asked front-of-pack warning labels to be made mandatory and have called for comprehensive regulation of UPF and HFSS marketing, including restrictions on celebrity endorsements, cartoon characters and child-directed promotions and a ban on the sale of sugary drinks and HFSS products in school canteens.
The doctors point to the alarming rise in diet-related non-communicable diseases, with National Family Health Survey-6 showing that nearly one in three women and more than one in four men aged 15–49 are overweight or obese. They cite growing scientific evidence linking UPF consumption with obesity, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease and argue that aggressive and, often misleading, advertising, especially when endorsed by celebrities and sports sponsorships, encourages overconsumption.
The issue is ultimately not about whether consumers can read a nutrition panel. It is about whether they can understand it in the few seconds in which a purchase is made. A front-of-pack warning cannot make a food healthy; nor can it tell people what to eat. It can do something much more basic: tell them, clearly and immediately, when a product is high in sugar, salt or saturated fat. That is information consumers have a right to receive before they buy—not after they have learnt to decode the fine print.
Perhaps that is the real question before the Supreme Court: When the packet is designed to sell, who ensures that the truth is equally visible?
Fine prints are always so fine that one requires a real magnifying glass to actually read the ingredients. It is high time that such labels are marked in bold, colorful and upfront on the packet.
Absolutely right, front of label information should be made mandatory and the food industry brought to heel. The Indian consumers are always taken for granted by the profit mongering, unscrupulous big corporations aided by the regulators like FSSAI, who are just weak in implementing the regulations. Hope the SC clamps down heavily on this.
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