Packaged food and beverage products sold in India have once again come under scrutiny after a report claimed that Fanta sold in the UK contained significantly less sugar than the version available domestically.
The difference in the formulation of the product has sparked a debate on food labelling norms in the country. The Supreme Court had criticised the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) earlier this month on the issue of front-of-pack warning labels on packaged food products with high levels of sugar, salt, and saturated fats.
According to Urvashi Agarwal, a food safety educator, when it comes to soft drinks like Fanta, the difference between India and the UK also exists due to factors like sugar tax and regulatory environment.
Agarwal told NDTV Profit that the UK’s soft drinks tax means there is a financial incentive for manufacturers to lower the amount of sugar in their beverage products.
“In the UK, there is cold drink tax. So the manufacturer, the more sugar the manufacturer puts in the cold drink, the more tax he pays. So there is a financial incentive for the manufacturer to put less sugar, which is not there in India,” she explained.
Agarwal also raised the issue of affordability, adding that while many brands are coming up with better ingredients and cleaner labels, a big section of the population cannot afford those items.
Fanta Debate in India
A Reuters report earlier this week stated that a can of Fanta sold in the UK has 63 calories, while the same brand contains three times as much sugar. It also includes artificial dye, whose presence is mentioned in small print at the back of the bottle. In Europe, the presence of artificial dye in food products requires a prominent health warning.
The difference also lies in ingredients for products like Maggi. Many versions of Maggi sold in Britain use sunflower oil, but all variants of the product in India are made using palm oil. There are no warnings about high salt content in the packets sold in India.
Some of the world’s biggest companies have long resisted efforts to mandate nutritional warnings on the front of packaged products in India, according to Reuters.
Almost 80% of products manufactured by India’s packaged food and beverages market, which is valued at over $100 billion, could be regarded as high in fat, sugar and salt, industry estimates reveal.
Since 2017, Indian regulators have proposed prominent colour-coded warnings and ratings for a product’s nutritional value. However, producers are required only to list basic nutritional information and ingredients on the back of packaging.
