FSSAI tells Supreme Court it will put red hexagon warnings on high-fat, high-sugar packs

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has told the Supreme Court it will put red hexagonal warning labels on the front of packaged foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt.

The proposal arrived on Friday in a six-page compliance affidavit in a public interest petition filed by the NGOs 3S and Our Health Society. FSSAI said the labels would give a simple, prominent and easily understood warning about nutrients of concern, with children and other vulnerable groups named as the main audience.

The design is specific. A red hexagon would appear on products that are high in any two or more of three items: added saturated fat, added sugar and salt. Thresholds would follow the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024, issued by the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. The hexagon would carry the matching words: High Fat, High Sugar, High Salt, and, for drinks, Highly Sweetened Beverage. The warning type would be one point larger than the font used in the nutrition table on the back of the pack.

That filing is a reversal. After a meeting with food industry executives in March, the regulator had told the court that matching international labelling standards was difficult. On 27 August a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran gave the Centre two weeks to take a decision and said public health could not be compromised. The judges asked why India would not use front-of-pack warnings that other countries already print. Friday's affidavit is the reply.

India has talked about interpretive labels since 2017. Colour-coded schemes and star ratings were drafted, delayed and diluted. The back-of-pack nutrition table stayed as the main disclosure. Activists argued that shoppers do not turn the pack around in a two-second shelf decision, and that children cannot parse per-100-gram columns. Chile, Mexico and several other countries moved to black octagons or similar stop-sign warnings years ago. India's court file now points in that direction.

The trigger rule matters. A product high in only one of the three nutrients would not get the red hexagon under the text FSSAI submitted. A biscuit that is high in sugar and fat would. A drink that is high in sugar and classified as a highly sweetened beverage would. The two-out-of-three test will decide how much of the snack aisle turns red and how much stays clean.

The affidavit is a proposal, not a notified regulation. The court still has to accept it. FSSAI still has to draft the legal standard, set the exact gram and milligram cut-offs from the 2024 guidelines, and give industry a compliance window. Food companies will lobby on serving size, on whether added sugar includes honey and fruit concentrates, and on whether the hexagon must sit on imported packs as well as domestic ones.

What changed this week is the public position. The regulator that said international-style warnings were difficult has now drawn a red hexagon on paper and handed it to the Supreme Court. The next hearing will show whether that drawing becomes a rule on the shelf.