Indian Sellers Collective (ISC), an umbrella body of trade associations and sellers across the country, has strongly opposed the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) proposal of FOPNL (INR) – Front of Pack Nutrition Labelling (Indian Nutrition Rating) Regulation.

The representative body has alleged that FOPNL will lead to ethnic Indian foods being classified as “unhealthy”.

“This will cause loss in business to MSME packaged food manufacturers and sellers and open the floodgates for western packaged food to capture the Indian markets,” stated ISC.

The proposed regulation will also make Indian cuisine fall prey to design of MNC’s and will be a big setback to Prime Minister’s vision of Atma Nirbhar Bharat and ‘Make in India’.

As per ISC, under FOPNL, packaged items will be given star ratings like ‘one-star food’, ‘two-star food’, and therefore ‘good-food’, ‘not-good food’, etc. based on their salt, sugar, and fat content.

“These emerging manufacturers are making their livelihood by selling naturally made food items in packaged form and retailing them through the available sales channels. Since, traditional Indian cuisine make use of salt, sugar, and fat, for various scientific and customary reasons, these items will ostensibly be marked ‘unhealthy’ under the proposed mathematical calculation and expression of star rating system,” it stated.

Terming FONPL a blunder for India,  Dhairyashil Patil, President, All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation (AICPDF), said, “Large distributors and big retail who are thriving through collaborations with MNC and large food companies will continue to sell the reconstituted, western packaged foods in India, as adoption of FONPL will go on to destroy the market for traditional Indian packaged foods. However, the millions of small, independent sellers who largely depend on MSME manufacturers and packaged traditional Indian snacks to earn their livelihoods, will have no recourse, thereby threatening their very survival.”

“Disrupting the food industry will also have a negative impact on our farmers and poor unskilled retailers hugely impacting their livelihoods. This will completely disrupt the Indian market for food products”, he concluded.

 Elaborating on the issue, Shriram Baxi, General Secretary, Federation of All India Distributors Association (FAIDA) and Federation of Gujarat FMCG Distributors Associations (FGDA) said, “India is a very diverse country having a variety of local cuisines and recipes relevant to local climatic condition and it will be disastrous to judge them by a uniform rating system such as Health Star Rating (HSR). There are rituals, tradition and local tastes associated with Indian food which need to be respected. If FOPL is adopted, traditional Indian food products like dhokla, papad, gulab jamun, barfi, achar and chutney prepared with salt, fat and sugar contents for specific purposes like preservation and texture will also get discredited. Regulators are ignoring that these products are being consumed in India as adjuvants in small portion sizes.”

“As India is producing enough local food, the current law is an overreach. FOPL type of rating system should exempt Indian foods completely. We only need to rate imported packaged food items whose ingredients and quality is hugely suspect”, he added.

Indian Sellers Collective believes that Western Countries are eyeing Indian market, which aims to become a 10 trillion-dollar consumption economy by 2030.

According to Abhay Raj Mishra, Member & National Coordinator, Indian Sellers Collective, “The proposed FOPNL guidelines in their current form will classify more than 85% of Indian traditional food and snacks unhealthy. The proposed star ratings method is a copy and paste of voluntary guidelines issued in the western countries and not based on any scientific nutritional study of Indian foods. It is a known fact that western processed foods are made to appear healthy through reconstitution and fortification with synthetic vitamins and additives, to achieve desired ratings.”

“After learning the hard way, western world is now reverting to fresh food forcing multinationals to turn to large consumption markets like India to push their packaged foods. FOPNL guidelines are purely a western agenda, aimed at changing the Indian food palate by creating fear against traditional Indian foods. This is an attack against our culture and traditional Indian cuisine and Indians need to oppose this hidden agenda vehemently”, he added.

The draft notification by FSSAI also provides list of solid foods/liquid foods which will be exempted from FOPNL.

According to a study by FICCI, the Indian food processing industry accounts for 32 per cent of the country’s total food market, one of the largest industries in India and is ranked fifth in terms of production, consumption, export and expected growth.

It contributes around 8.80 and 8.39 per cent of Gross Value Added (GVA) in Manufacturing and Agriculture respectively.

The Indian gourmet food market is currently valued at US$ 1.3 billion and is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent.

Majority of processed food market of India is concentrated in Tier II and III towns, and there has been a growth in food parks in these cities. Almost 79% of this market is dominated by MSME players.