India’s food processing industry is now the world’s sixth largest and is expected to reach INR 40.1 trillion by 2026. According to experts, the nutritional landscape is changing in India.

Changes in consumers’ diets in India play a significant role in both, especially overweight and obesity. The World Health Organization (WHO) India’s 2023 report on the ‘Growth of ultra-processed foods in India’ describes how between 2011 and 2021, India’s Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) sector grew at a compound annual growth rate of13.37 percent in retail sales value, and represents 37 percent share of the overall processed food market (2023).

Full list of companies assessed: Adani Wilmar; Agro Tech Foods; Britannia Industries; Coca-Cola India; Dabur India; Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) AMUL; Haldiram’s Snacks Private Limited; Hatsun Agro Products; Heritage Foods; Hindustan Unilever; ITC; KMF Nandini (Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation); Lactalis India; Marico; Mondelez India Foods; Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetables; Nestlé India; Parle Products; Patanjali Foods; PepsiCo India.

During the launch of the report, Financial Express.com got the opportunity to interview Greg S Garrett, Executive Director, Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) and he spoke about crucial aspects of nutrition in India, trends, need-gaps and impact of the report among others. Excerpts:

We talk a lot about nutrition. And when we are talking about when you’re in India, a country which has the highest burden of non-communicable diseases, diabetes, obesity, and people don’t take nutrition seriously and you’ve launched this report; So how do you see this report influencing the minds of Indians, who don’t still don’t understand the concept of nutrition?

The report in and of itself is probably not going to be enough to change the mindset of the consumer. However, there are two very important things that we want to do over the coming year that will lead to change. Firstly, we want to make sure that we partner with groups like Consumer Voice and other associations of consumer organizations who know how to take the data and educate the consumer. They do it better than we can, and they will use our report for that. They can best indicate which companies are doing well on nutrition. They can best explain what does good nutrition mean and hat’s the healthy food process. Secondly, maybe even more importantly, is the financial community, many of whom are in Mumbai, and Delhi, and who are the asset owners or the shareholders, the bondholders of the companies, they are looking at this data, and they will go and talk to the board room of companies and tell them that you need to improve your labels, you need to improve your marketing, you need to improve the healthiness of products. That is going to change what consumers see over time in the supermarket. And it would be good if media like yourselves could also make clear reports on the trends around the consumption of processed foods- they’re contributing towards malnutrition, obesity, overweight, and diabetes. And if we don’t ensure that the diets are well balanced then this is going to get worse. So we do need our report to be used to make that argument.

There are a lot of products that are disguised as healthy but aren’t healthy. How to empower the consumer? What will help the consumer in making the right choice?

So this is a great question. For example, if you were to talk about vitamins and minerals. Let’s say you take vitamin A or vitamin D, or other vitamins and minerals and add them to a food that is already high in fat and salt and sugar and label it as healthy. Of course, this food could lead to an improvement on your micronutrient intake, but it could do more damage due to the intake of unhealthy ingredients. And therefore the government, not just in India, any government should have clear guidelines on what the fortification of processed foods should look like. It should for healthy foods, if a company adds vitamins in a voluntary way to unhealthy foods, you should not be allowed to label it as healthy; you should not be able to claim that this is some kind of superfood or healthy for you. It still is an unhealthy food. And so, we made a recommendation on this in the report because we saw some problems, there are several products which are very unhealthy and being fortified. And our concern is that the consumer thinks he or she could eat as much as they want. But this is not the case. So, we need clear labels, clear regulations, and better marketing of these fortified foods.

What are some of the recent trends with your observation? What are the recent trends that you have observed over the years for countries like India, which has issues like hidden hunger, malnutrition, and undernutrition, Also if you could highlight the recommendations?

Okay so here’s one that I find fascinating. There is a trend in Sub-Saharan Africa, and I think you could apply this to India. You often hear that issues like obesity, overweight and diabetes, are a problem of the wealthy. However, the data indicates that’s no longer the case. So the FAO and other UN agencies, produced a report that came out in July called the state of Food Security and, Nutrition in the World.

It states very clearly that in the many countries in Sub Saharan Africa, where they collected the data, children are now becoming overweight and obese due to the consumption of unhealthy processed foods, even in early peri urban areas of Sub Saharan Africa.

So, the narrative is changing. It used to be a problem with of the rich, but it’s not anymore. It’s a problem among all demographics now, because what we’re seeing is that diets are changing, they’re shifting, even outside of cities, even among average, I’d say lower income quintiles not just the rich. And so logically, what does this mean? It means that in 10 years, if we don’t change this trajectory, we’re gonna going to have a real problem on our hands with diabetes being a problem with the poor even, in rural areas.

So according to you, what are some of the behavioral changes that needs to be inculcated as a change at a policy-level?

In this current report, it’s a multifactorial problem and therefore it’s a multi-sectoral response is required. This, means companies should be self-regulating, that government should be putting in place policies and such as appropriate taxes and subsidies that help to regulate and incentivize the production of good food, and labeling and all of that, that goes with it. Investors should be required – through in their responsible investing practice – require reports from the food companies on these issues they want to, they should be asking the companies. And the consumer, of course, has a right to be educated. So there’s an opportunity for more nutrition education, at the school level, and also among doctors. So a multi-sectoral responseis needed to attack this issue for from many sides. Because not any one sector or any one industry can tackle this, but working together, we can.

Do you think some kind of penalisation for companies who are making unhealthy products, or some kind of incentives for healthy food could make a difference? Do you think it is feasible on the implementation level?

I do think that would help. Take the case of the oil and gas industry. More and more countries are now putting in place taxes on, say, fossil fuels. And that does make a change in how consumers drive and use any equipment or any transport that usedthese fossil fuels. It is harmful for the planet if we continue to use that at these levels. It’s the same with food. Why is it that in our markets, that unhealthy foods are is often cheaper than healthy one- that’s a problem. There’s an opportunity for governments to change that. In the United States where I was born, we have an agricultural subsidy that’s going to maize. And while that’s good for the farmers, it produces an excess production of maize, which then goes into the foodsupply, often in the form of derivatives like corn syrup. And that corn syrup is in a lot of products that it doesn’t need to be in. But it’s cheap. It’s a filling product. And it does create problems. That’s an example of a government subsidy that which had been positive but is no longer anymore good. But there’s the taxes on sugary sweet beverages, which in some countries is helping so I think it that represents is a great opportunity for the government to regulate unhealthy production andconsumption. I hope in India, these kinds of nutrition-related policies, taxes, and subsidies can be adopted.

Every food package has a lot of nutritional guidelines and details on the back of the product label. However, often in India what happens is that I’ve noticed that people don’t read that. They tend to look at the back of the product only at expiry date, cost and that’s it. Do you think on an educational level we have to inculcate the behavior that people need to know how to read food labels?

Absolutely! This is an area where we encourage front-of-package labeling to companies. They should do that even if it’s not required because front-of-pack labeling is more visible. It should be clear and the labels don’t overpack information, because I think it’s fair to say, and the evidence indicated this that if you have too much information, you have no information. So it has to be the right messages on the front of the pack for consumers and there’s a role for retail to do this as well, to help label their shelves with what’s good, and what’s not. So we’re excited by the opportunity retail presents. In the future, we will be looking at food retail also in India.

For your next year’s report, are you planning to diversify into new parameters?

So we won’t do another index next year, but we’ll probably do another in two or three years. But what we will do next year issensitize using the data with investors, use the data with consumer groups, use the data with policymakers and use the data with companies to create change. When we repeat the index next we’d like to include food retail. Will we change the methodology? Maybe- maybe less indicators. And we may change the way we present the results. But otherwise, it won’t change much.

Some companies have not submitted the data to ATNI. So what do you are going to do about it?

It’s okay, there are opportunities still to engage. We looked publicly for data that would answer the questions. Many companies provided data. Some did not. Some companies were perhaps too busy. But we’ll still engage them if they’re willing to talk.