Packaged food firms ignore salt display rule leaving customers in the dark

Three out of four packaged foods available across the country fail to display salt levels despite regulations put in place by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) defining the minimum requirements for labelling the nutritional content of such products. 

A survey conducted by the George Institute for Global Health India has revealed that large numbers of packaged food products available in stores fail to display data on the amount of sodium present, thus preventing consumers from making informed choices. 

The survey covering 7,124 products available in Indian supermarkets revealed that only 26 per cent of packaged foods displayed sodium content on the label, thus making them noncompliant with the minimum labeling requirements of Codex – the international body governing food labeling. 

Guess work: Customers are not being advised as to their food's salt content in shops

The study is part of a larger project that is gathering evidence to initiate a national salt reduction programme in India.

"The preliminary findings of the study are a matter of great concern as consumers are eating progressively more processed foods generally containing higher levels of salt. This is not good for people in a country which is already projected to have an even larger noncommunicable diseases (NCD) burden in the future," said Dr Vivekanand Jha, executive director of George Institute for Global Health India. 

The average across all categories of products, ranging from bread and bakery products to snacks foods, was 73.2 per cent "unlabelled" for sodium. 

People are supposed to consume no more than 5 gm of salt, or sodium chloride, and 2,000 mg of sodium a day. If the content of salt or sodium in any product is unusually high, for example 2.5 gm, then it should ring alarm bells that tell the consumer that e is consuming half of his daily intake allowance in one portion of the food item. 

The ongoing project, being run by the George Institute for Global Health in collaboration with the Centre for Chronic Disease Control, will gather information on dietary salt intake levels among a sample of people in North and South India and collect nutrient information on packaged and other food available for purchase.

The George Institute for Global Health is an international medical research organization that has a wide-ranging programme of healthcare research and enterprise spanning over 50 countries.