Nestle India to launch Cerelac with no refined sugar

Nestle India is introducing 14 ‘no-refined sugar’ variants of baby food brand Cerelac next month, following a sweeping global controversy that the brand added sugar to its baby foods in developing South Asian countries including India, but not in markets like Europe or UK, the company announced on Thursday.

In a statement released Thursday to announce its July-September quarter earnings, Nestle India said that the expanded Cerelac range in India will have 21 variants, of which 14 variants will have no refined sugar, adding that these will be introduced by November-end this year. "This was initiated three years ago and has culminated this year with the introduction of new Cerelac variants with no refined sugar,” company chairman Suresh Narayanan said in a statement.

In April this year, Cerelac had landed in sweeping global controversy, when a Swiss investigative organisation The Public Eye and International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) claimed in a report that Cerelac contained nearly 3 grams of sugar per serving many developing markets such as India, Africa and Latin America but not in primary markets like Europe or the UK. The report alleged that added sugars were found in Cerelac in many low-and-middle-income countries, but not in developed markets. Nestle, at the time, denied the allegations and said its baby food brand in India had half the permissible limit of added sugar as set by the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). The company had also said it had reduced added sugars by 30% over the past five years.