How much carbs in the food? Restaurants to be pulled up for lack of nutrition info

New Delhi: The government is planning a crackdown on restaurants which are still to declare nutritional information such as amount of carbohydrates, protein and sugar in their food menus, a step that is expected to impact thousands of restaurants across the country. "There is non-compliance online as well as in physical stores," said a senior official at Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), adding that the authority will take "serious note" of non-compliance issues.

So far, only a limited number of restaurants are declaring detailed nutritional information, despite this being a regulation since July 2022, another official said. Restaurant chains with 10 or more outlets are required to display nutritional and allergen information on their menus.

FSSAI plans to issue notices to non-compliant restaurants and give them a deadline for complying with the government, a third official said, adding the exercise is likely to commence by the festive season this year.

Sagar Daryani, vice-president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents over 500,000 restaurants, said, "Many large and mid-sized restaurant chains already have manual books which detail nutritional information along with their menus, since putting out such details alongside the menus becomes unreadable."

Darayani, also a founder of fast-food chain Wow! Momo, said, however, that printing nutritional information of food items on online platforms is not mandatory. Industry executives termed the government move as "unrealistic".

A senior executive at a large fast-food chain said: "We are a quick-service chain, and we offer certain types of foods which consumers prefer by choice. We could put out info such as fats and sugar on our menu, but an apple-to-apple comparison with a chain that sells only salads, for example, would be unfair and unrealistic."

Menu labelling was made mandatory for certain categories of restaurants and food delivery apps with the aim of informing consumers about food's calorific value and nutritional content.

FSSAI made it mandatory for restaurants having a central licence, outlets in at least ten locations, and ecommerce food business operators (FBOs) selling food products to abide by the regulations. "With rising consumer affluence, incidents of dine out, proliferation of food ecommerce platforms and instant ordering, the health impact of such sudden shifts in consumer behaviour is drastic and permanent. Coupled with food safety breaches being reported regularly in media and social media, it presents an alarming story of food safety compromise," said Rashida Vapiwala, founder at LabelBlind, which helps businesses comply with food labelling regulations using AI-led digitisation.

FSSAI had earlier this year directed caterers of airlines to comply with the menu labelling norms as they have central licences. The development comes at a time when implementation of front-of-pack labelling (FoPL) on less healthy foods and beverages, is also gaining ground, amid escalation of the matter by health and nutrition advocacies, boardrooms and social media influencers.

In July this year, the FSSAI approved a proposal making it mandatory for packaged food makers to display nutritional information such as total sugar, salt and saturated fat, in bold letters and larger font sizes.