Translation of the title: India will read labels, but how?
I love
Revant Himatsingka’s videos on food and nutrition. I first came to know about
him from the Label Padhega India campaign. He urged people to read
the labels on food products before they buy them. The campaign became hugely
popular, thanks to Revant’s candid style and approach of putting data first. It
tried to bring transparency to the food industry – something sorely lacking in India.
It hits you
hard when you consider that this industry is worth nearly USD 30 billion and hardly any rules to govern
the production and sale of junk food. No wonder companies from the world over
are making a beeline to India.
As if on
cue, the Supreme Court recently asked the Indian government to come up with guidelines to
clearly display nutritional information on the labels of food products.
Both the
Label Padhega India campaign and the apex court’s directive are all headed in
the right direction. Companies must responsibly announce what they are trying
to feed consumers. There is no question about it.
However,
both these moves miss a point. It’s great for Indians to start reading food
labels. But will they understand what they read?
For one,
the food labels are all in English, cutting off access for most Indians right
away. Revant suggests a hack for this: the label must include a QR code
which can link to a webpage with nutritional information in all Indian
languages. However, I doubt if this step is enough to make labels easy to
understand.
Why so?
That’s because plain language standards are sorely lacking in India and you can
expect the same on food labels.
For
example, when it says “fortified”, it means “added” in the food labelling
context. So why not say “added” in the first place?
But plain
language is not just about using simpler words. It is about the audience
and what the audience finds plain enough. In countries like India where health
awareness is seriously lacking, what does “low fat” mean? How low is low? According
to Better Health Channel, anything calling itself low
fat must contain less than 3% fat for solid foods (1.5% for liquid
foods). So, if something is being advertised as 93% fat-free, it still has 7%
fat, which is not low.
Even saying
that a soft drink contains x amount of caffeine may not be enough, as we don’t
know how much caffeine is too much for us. Gov.UK recommends that apart from
declaring the nutrition information in ml or mg, we also need clear warnings
that say “High caffeine: not recommended for children or pregnant women”.
Then again,
a label is not just about the text. We need plain design as well. The US
FDA has detailed guidelines on how different elements of a food label must be displayed [pdf].
Labelling shouldn’t be about marketing. Take this label of a popular wheat shavige (seviyan/vermicelli) brand.
It
says, “No added maida”. It made me wonder if the vermicelli is made of maida (refined
flour) or wheat? When the ingredients
list clearly states that it contains wheat semolina, why bother to say that
your product doesn’t have something it is not supposed to have anyway? If the company
meant to market its product to consumers who want to avoid maida, it could have
simply said, “No maida”. Just don’t add the word “added” to serve your
marketing purposes. It’s confusing!
Of course, given
the low level of health literacy and that fact that Indians reach out for the next
pack of chips or the next bottle of cold drinks without a qualm, why bother
with nutritional information? Will labelling something as highly salty or
sugary stop the Indian consumer?
There are
many answers to this, but perhaps the most relevant is that we are making a big
assumption by saying that people don’t care. How do we know that for a fact? Has
a genuine attempt been made to inform the consumer? Do we have data to show comparisons
between sales before and after clear nutritional labelling was provided?
