The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed to introduce information relating to added sugar, fat and salt in pictorial form on the front-of-pack (FoP) of food products to warn the consumers regarding items which are high in specified nutrients of concern.The proposal placed before the Supreme Court talks of introducing red-coloured hexagonal warning labels on packaged food products. The thresholds would be based on the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024, issued by the ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition.The proposal was placed before the apex court through a six-page compliance affidavit filed in a public interest litigation seeking mandatory front-of-pack disclosures for packaged foods containing high quantities of fat, sugar and salt.The warnings would indicate declarations such as “high fat”, “high sugar”, “high salt” and “highly sweetened beverage”, depending on the composition of the product.According to the proposal, the warning needs to be displayed in a font size larger than the font used in the nutrition information table on the back of the pack, making it more prominent for consumers.The food regulator has also proposed to exempt single-ingredient food products and the ones which are inherently rich in fat, sugar or salt, such as ghee, edible oil, salt, sugar, jaggery and honey.The FSSAI seeks to implement the FOP in phases to facilitate consumer acceptability and provide the food industry adequate time for reformulation. Phase I would cover products high in two or more specified nutrients – added fat, added sugar, salt and specified sweetened beverages – and Phase II would extend the warning to products high in any one of these nutrients.The FSSAI has retracted its earlier decision against imposing warning labels after the Supreme Court had questioned the regulator’s failure to introduce interpretive FoP labels that would clearly indicate the levels of sugar, salt and saturated fat in packaged foods.The apex court noted the Economic Survey 2025-26 report, which stated that India’s ultra-processed foods market increased more than 150% from 2009 to 2023. It is reportedly the same period in which obesity has doubled in men and women.The FSSAI’s shift comes shortly after the Supreme Court expressed reservations over its handling of front-of-pack nutritional warnings. The Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran had questioned why the authorities had moved away from an earlier approach favouring interpretive warning labels.On February 10, the Supreme Court directed FSSAI to implement interpretive warning labels on packaged food products high in sugar, salt and saturated fat.On August 3, the FSSAI had filed an affidavit proposing a numerical table on food products, which the court rejected as inadequate.The matter is listed for September 10.“The FSSAI’s red hexagonal warning label is a step forward, but the ‘two or more’ threshold is a massive loophole. A product with high sugar carries no warning if it is low in fat and salt. That is not public health; that is regulatory capture. Further, the definition of HFSS is critical to include total sugar and fats,” said Dr Arun Gupta, convener of Nutrition Advocacy in the Public Interest.In 2025, Union Minister Prataprao Jadhav told Parliament that the FSSAI has notified the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018, to establish fairness in claims and advertisements of food products and make food businesses accountable for such claims / advertisements.