Indian Nutrition Rating (INR)

• 26 Sep 2022

Why in News?

Recently, The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country’s apex food regulator, released a draft notification for front-of-pack labelling which would be known as the Indian Nutrition Rating (INR).

What do we know about Indian Nutrition Ratings (INR)?

• About:
  • It mandates pre-packaged foods to carry a star rating similar to the energy-efficiency ratings on electronic goods, to discourage the consumption of foods high in sugar, salt and fats.
• Types:
  • Daily Intake Guide: The proportion of the daily recommendations of nutrients is present in one serving of the pre-packaged food.
  • Nutritional information Panel: It provides the quality of each of the main nutrients present in the food.
  • Traffic Light Labelling: It shows the amount of fats, salt, sugar,etc, present in the serving and classifies it with colours like red, orange or green based on how healthy it is.
  • Warning Label: It shows whether the quality of salt, sugar and fats is high, without providing details of the quantities in the food.
  • Star Rating: It provides 1 to 5 stars based on how healthy the product is, with 5 being healthiest and 1 for least healthy.
• Process of Rating: Further, the items would be given scores based on contribution of energy and content of saturated fat, sugar, sodium, fruit and vegetables (FV), nuts, legumes, and millets (NLM), dietary fibre, and protein per 100 gm of solid or 100 ml liquid foods.
  • Solid food with a score of more than 25 will be given 0.5 stars, and those with a score less than – (minus)11 will get 5 stars.
• Logo: The logo shall be displayed close in proximity to the name or brand name of the product on the front of pack.
• Implementation: The food businesses may add interpretive information next to the star-rating logo, giving details of energy, sugar, saturated fat, and salt content.
  • To generate the star-rating logo for the product, food businesses have to submit nutritional profiles of the products concerned on FSSAI’s FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System) portal.
• Exempted Products:
  • Food such as milk and milk products, whey, butter oil, ghee, vegetable oil and fat, fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, fresh and frozen meat, egg, fish, flour, and sweeteners will not have to display the star rating.
    • Carbonated beverages without any energy or sugar will also not be eligible for declaring the rating.
• Significance:
  • According to a study there was a change in consumption pattern in several Latin American countries that implemented such warning labels, and that Chile reported a 24% drop in sugary drink consumption.
  • A meta-analysis of 100 studies published in a study indicated that nutrient warning labels are more effective than traffic lights and nutri-scrore labels.

Source: IE