A can of Fanta sold in London has 63 calories. Buy the same brand in India, and it contains three times as much sugar. It also includes artificial dye, whose presence in food products in Europe requires a prominent health warning. In India, the colorant’s presence is noted merely in small print on the back of the can.
That suits some of the world’s biggest companies, which have long resisted Indian efforts to mandate nutritional warnings on the front of packaged products.
Consumer giants like Coca-Cola, which makes Fanta, appear to have the advantage. India’s food-safety regulator said in August that it had abandoned a push for colorful warnings on the front of food packaging. It said such warning labels don't account for how Indian cuisine has more intense flavors than Western food and instead proposed that companies display a black-and-white table of sugar, fat and salt content.
India's Supreme Court is scrutinizing that decision after a petition by public health activists. At stake are the waistlines of the 450 million Indians who could be obese or overweight by 2050, according to a recent study published in the journal Lancet. Experts say more transparency in labeling can forge healthier eating habits. At their urging, roughly 20 nations have adopted interpretive labels — which may include highlighting high sugar levels in red and low fat content in green — on the front of packaged foods
Nestle is a member of Indian lobbies that fought the regulator’s erstwhile proposals. But the company has voluntarily used interpretive labels in Britain since 2013
Nearly 80% of products made by India’s over $100 billion packaged food and beverages market could be regarded as high in fat, sugar and salt, according to industry estimates.
For this report, Reuters reviewed the audio recordings, hundreds of pages of government and corporate documents, and interviewed 11 industry executives and health experts.
