{"id":9047,"date":"2022-04-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/22-04-2022\/front-of-package-labelling-fopl-system\/"},"modified":"2022-04-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T00:00:00","slug":"front-of-package-labelling-fopl-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/22-04-2022\/front-of-package-labelling-fopl-system","title":{"rendered":"Front of Package Labelling (FOPL) System"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>In News<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has announced that it will soon start a star rating for packaged food.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Public health experts gathered at the \u2018<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>National Conclave on Sustainable Food Systems<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">\u2019 organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in Rajasthan.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>About<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><u> <\/u><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>star ratings<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>The rating will be the first such in India<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">, a country <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>burdened with lifestyle diseases<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Aim:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> It is aimed at guiding consumers to opt for healthy food.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Meaning<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: Health star rating is a labelling system that grades packaged foods on the scale of one to five stars.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>The star rating will be determined<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> by the amount of fats, sugar, and salt in the food item.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Front-of-pack labelling on packaged foods<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> was first recommended by the FSSAI-led committee formed in 2013.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/wXO9ksU6UuYR7pf49tEhKQv514fC0Wwp4S3ORyTIg8cFS50O0dogwZlF6ShZWLzjWwzte2UjExeEdJYXlL3KKFUk6Q8mZWcwUv7UFRKAay7M_CD0E050UZivhlgRFk6sFtiCNCr8\" style=\"height:255px; width:624px\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Importance of the labelling system<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Obesity and non-communicable diseases<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: If the government is serious about the epidemic of obesity and non-communicable diseases, the consumer needs to be cautioned about junk foods through \u2018warning&#8217; labels.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Study conducted by IIM Ahmedabad<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: The display of star ratings was recommended by a study conducted by IIM Ahmedabad to make it easier for customers to understand.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Educate consumers<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: FSSAI began looking for ways to educate consumers about the nutrition profile of the food they are consuming.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>The system will be similar to the one that is being used by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> for assessing the energy efficiency in electrical devices.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Challenges<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Misleading<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: Health star ratings are designed by the powerful food industry to mislead the consumer.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Glorifying junk foods<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will give licence to glorify junk foods, which is the opposite of what should be done.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Least effective method<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: FSSAI is getting ready to adopt a labelling system which is considered least effective and rejected across the world.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Health star ratings are depicted based on an algorithm at the back-end<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: which is not known to consumers and it is only adopted voluntarily in few countries such as Australia and New Zealand and only some food products carry it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>It has been rejected in several other countries<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> as it can mislead the consumer and be easily manipulated by the industry.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Faulty calculation<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: It will mislead the consumer because of its design, algorithm and inclusion of positive nutrients in the calculation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Way forward\/ Suggestions<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>The government should issue a \u2018warning&#8217; label on packaged junk foods instead of health star ratings <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">as they are misleading and doing more harm to customers than good.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Following WHO limits:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> FSSAI came up with a draft regulation in 2018, which had strict threshold limits to know unhealthy levels based on those developed by the WHO for countries like India in the South-East Asia Region.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>The proven best practice in front-of-pack labelling is nutrient specific \u2018warning&#8217; labels.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">They have been simple and effective in <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>discouraging junk food consumption.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Several Latin American countries, Canada and Israel <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">have already adopted warning labels.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Many other countries<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> are considering them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Among them, the best known are <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>symbol-based warning labels such as that of Israel.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source: <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/industry\/cons-products\/food\/give-warning-label-not-health-star-rating-on-junk-food-packages-experts-tell-to-fssai\/articleshow\/90957359.cms\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u>ET<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has announced that it will soon start a star rating for packaged food. Public health experts gathered at the \u2018National Conclave on Sustainable Food Systems\u2019 organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in Rajasthan.\u00a0 About star ratings The rating will be the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,46],"class_list":["post-9047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-3","tag-indian-economy-related-issues"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/7883172Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}