0:03 This database is out in the public for the first time. The name real conveys this message that this is real juice that this is real fruit juice. It actually consists of about 18.6% uh fruit concentrate. The juice is not actually 100% juice. There's a tea brand that claims that it can help women with PCOD. We came across a herbal concoction uh which is supposed to have anti-diabetic properties. Patangjali claimed in on its honey product that its honey can purify blood and that it has antiseptic properties. >> As a consumer, it's my right to know >> what the food regulator is doing in this domain. >> The owner should be on the government. This is a classic example of big talk in
0:49 public and Packaged food is one of India's most successful industries. It's grown by more than 150% in the past 15 years and its growth is directly linked to a rise in diseases like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. And yet many of the companies selling these ultrarocessed factory-made food products which are saturated in fat, sugar and
1:35 salt continue to claim that their products are healthy, natural, pure, sugar-free even after India's food regulator has clearly labeled these claims to be misleading. This is what Shri Jalihal found in the course of reporting a special series for scroll. >> Hi Shri Girish. Shalom >> Shriish as journalists we typically report on things that don't directly affect us but your topic of research were food products that most of us consume and I assume you consume as well. So I want to start by asking you did your reporting in any way change the choices you make as a consumer? uh not because of the reporting but I do know the importance that dietary choices hold in our lives because I've had I've
2:22 dealt with a health crisis before and uh my doctor had uh strictly advised me to watch what I eat. So I mostly consume whole foods. But what happened in the course of reporting for this project is that uh just the amount of claims and uh the things that we saw was so shocking that I made it a point to tell my family, my friends, everyone to stay clear of ultrarocessed foods. >> Yeah. Tell us any specific example where you had to caution someone you love that don't consume this. >> Absolutely. uh and uh it it involves public interest as well not just a personal anecdote because I was traveling in a train with my mother and uh you know Indian railways serve you food and uh the snacks that they serve they all contained packaged foods ultra
3:07 processed foods and I was educating my mom about this uh and why she should not be eating the chips and uh the sauces etc that they serve and then she picked up uh one of the boxes package jew box uh product that I was coincidentally reporting on at the same time by Dabber Dar Dabber's real juice and she picked up that box showed it to me and she goes you know I can at least drink this right and I asked her why and uh her response was because it says it's real so the the marketing behind these products uh targets people like my mother you know the name real conveys this message that this is real juice that this is real fruit juice the kind that we would make in our homes in our kitchens but that is not the case And uh yeah, that was an
3:53 alarming u example for me because my mom uh was doing that. So yes. >> Yeah. Well, we'll come back to real fruit juice and what happened in that case. But let's roll back a bit and start with basics. So India has a food regulator. >> Yeah. >> And it's called the food safety and standards authority of India. Among the many things it's supposed to do is to ensure that all claims made by companies in their labels in their ads are truthful and scientific. >> How how is it supposed to do this? >> So uh according to India's food safety law uh any product that is sold should make claims that are truthful, meaningful, unambiguous and not misleading and any scientific claims should be substantiated adequately.
4:38 uh to ensure this the FSSEI uh has an in-house committee which is tasked with monitoring claims that are being made across the board. So uh on product labels on uh social media on e-commerce platforms uh your quick commerce platforms as well and their entire task is to sit and monitor this. So officials within FCCI can do that. Someone from the public can do that. Uh even government bodies affiliated with the government can do that and uh >> can can send a case to the committee to examine. >> Yes. Yes. Right. >> And uh uh we even found cases where uh competing businesses complained about uh their rivals and said you know they're making uh misleading claims or whatever. And then this committee is governed
5:24 under very strict regulations. So once they have identified something as misleading they discuss it in a meeting and after that they are supposed to contact the company and send them uh flag those specific claims to them and ask for substantiation. Now if the company is not able to do that then they send an improvement notice which is basically FSCI's way of saying you have misled the public and now you have to correct this and the company has to do it within a stipulated amount of time. If it does not do that and if the claims continue then uh FSCI has the power to penalize the company rupees 10 lakh as per the food safety law and can even revoke this their license. Now this entire process has to be uh wrapped up within 165 days >> right >> as per the regulations.
6:10 >> Okay well let's now straight dive into your investigation. Let me just summarize it for our audience here. Using RTI, Shri Girish dug out more than 200 pages of internal correspondence of the advertising and claims monitoring committee of the food regulator. These are deliberations that took place in March 2024 where the committee examined claims made by over 160 products. In 136 cases, the regulator even sent improvement notices to these companies. In several cases, the committee recommended that the claims be taken down or modified. The question that Shriish tried to answer, what happened next? Did the regulator act? Did the companies take down the claims?
6:57 Shigarish, what did you find? Uh the first thing superior that I would like uh scrolls viewers to know is that this database is out in the public for the first time thanks to repotage and uh that speaks to the level of opacity that has been prevailing in the system despite the massive public interest that is involved. Um and yes uh what we found is quite shocking like you said uh in March 2024 they discussed over 160 uh products for misleading claims and uh years later uh we published this in a couple of months ago in 2026 and uh we know that uh 120 of those misleading claims are still in circulation despite FSCI having flagged them years ago and uh despite guidelines requiring the whole process to be uh wrapped up within
7:42 165 days. We know that these uh uh misleading claims are still in circulation and people >> how do we know this? >> Because uh what we did is uh we actually went product by product and we checked across the internet and uh we in some cases we even bought some of those products to see if those claims are still intact. This involved uh going through uh the listings on e-commerce websites, the listings on uh quickcommerce websites, not just what uh the heading or the title of the page says, but in uh all looking at all of the images of the products, uh scrolling down saying uh looking at all of the banners that they place for uh marketing their products, looking at their ads on YouTube, all of that. And uh we
8:28 meticulously went through each of those claims to see if those claims are still intact, the ones that FSCI had flagged and what we found is that 120 so a majority of them are still in circulation and people are buying these products based on these misleading claims. >> Well, as you said, we bought some of these products and I remember we bought some of these products while we were working on the story in the office and the first one that I recall as buying was this one, right? This is milk bikes, a biscuit manufactured by Britannia. >> Yeah. >> Tell us about this case. >> Uh so yes, this is a very typical example of the kind of claims that uh are still remain in circulation even after FSCI has flagged them. Uh as the viewers can see the packaging very clearly up front says D roti Shaki uh
9:15 right below the image of the biscuit. uh what they're trying to tell potential buyers is that this has the same energy as that of a home-cooked meal of milk and freshlymade roties. Now, FSCI officials were a gasast with this and they pointed it out. They said this seems misleading and that uh you are making a false equivalence between an ultrarocessed factory manufactured biscuit and roties that are cooked at home. And this is clearly an example of a misleading claim. and they asked uh Britannia beginning January 2023 to examine these claims and to come back and justify making this claim. Now Britannia over the course of several months there was some back and forth between the regulator and the company and Britannia sent them revised artwork.
10:03 This revised artwork was referred to a scientific panel within the regulator and uh upon due review the regulator concluded that even the uh even the revised artwork does not cut it and uh they their conclusion was uh categorical that this is uh this this is in violation of uh regulations and they called it misleading. Right? But uh as we found and we ordered this just a couple of months ago and it it has been manufactured in 2026. So the packaging is still available and it's still going around and people if you look up u the product on uh e-commerce or quickcommerce websites you still see this image. So people are buying this regularly and milk is is a very popular product and yeah >> yeah so basically people are still buying it thinking that this has do >> what did Britannia say you contacted the
10:48 company >> so Britannia said the uh case is the communication between the company and the regulator is confidential in nature and they said the case is concluded >> that's about all they they told us >> I can't understand how any of this is confidential because it impacts me as a consumer it's in the public interest >> you mentioned real fruit juice this is another product that we bought right >> here. It is the bottle. Now, what was the misleading claim in the case of this juice as per the food regulator? >> So, uh the first thing as you can see in the packaging, it's u right there it says 100%. But if you check the back of pack, uh it actually consists of about 18.6% uh fruit concentrate. The juice is not actually 100% juice. There's a huge
11:35 difference between uh what my people like my mom would think when they see the word real. Uh it's not the apple juice that you would make at home. Take an apple, put it in a grinder, add some water. This is 18.6% uh uh apple concentrate that has been reconstituted to make juice. >> But it's not this just the brand name real. It's also the fact that they say 100% on the cover. >> Exactly. And uh that that was one of the things. The other thing that uh Dabber's real has been flagged for is real the product name and they're supposed to carry a disclaimer and it has to be a very visible disclaimer which says that real is just a brand name and it is it is not a reflection of the nature of the product but if you see this box and uh we've seen this across the board they
12:22 don't actually carry these disclaimers uh and yeah >> in this case if I remember correctly Dabber has contested this in court >> so Dber has contested 100% in court. Uh the fact that FSAI actually issued an order and this order came after uh the March 2024 uh discussion that we brought out to the public. Now uh I think it was in June 2024 that FSCI issued an order where they categorically said that juice boxes cannot carry words like 100%. >> That's under legal changes and that's an ongoing case. >> That's an ongoing case in the Delhi High Court. >> Right. A third product. Well, we're back to Britannia. This is now 100% >> whole wheat >> again. 100% 100% whole wheat.
13:09 >> What was the food regulators view on this? >> Uh very simple straightforward case. This is uh so FSSAI's guidelines are very clear that you can call yourself whole wheat only if you have a minimum 75% of whole wheat. Uh but this uh has 62.5% as the company itself declares uh on its uh packaging. So it's a very clear case of violation. >> Yeah. >> And I guess again Britannia's responses that this is confidential. >> These discussions are confidential in nature. >> What were the other broad patterns like what were the other categories that you came across in this database of 160 products? Well, uh the most alarming Supria are uh companies that regularly make medical u claims or claims related
13:54 to health and uh the the ones that we came across uh thanks to this uh FSSI database are simply shocking. There's no other way to put it. Uh I mean uh we we've seen teas uh tea products that claim that uh they they can help you u improve your kidney function, your liver function, that they can cure you of insomnia. There's there's a tea brand that claims that it can help women with PCOD. Uh so stuff like that. Uh we came across a herbal concoction uh which is supposed to have anti-diabetic properties. And if you look at uh the ad that they placed on uh their product listing on Amazon, it has this huge image of an old man eating syrupy gulab jamun with the chash is dripping and uh
14:41 and and the font there says the the words there says u that if you basically implying that if you consume this herbal uh product then you can enjoy any delicacy. Yeah. Any delicacy you want even if you have diabetes. So that kind of stuff and it wasn't just obscure brands like these that FSSI had flagged. We also noticed some very popular big names uh in the market making u uh claims like these that FSSAI flagged. So, Patangjali um which has been called out by the Supreme Court earlier for example uh claimed in on its honey product and the the claims are still up on uh quickcommerce websites that its honey can purify blood and that it has
15:28 antiseptic properties and the FSCI flagged this and the FSI flagged this thanks to complaint from the consumer protection authority the central uh consumer protection authority which is under the consumer affairs ministry. So this is the government one government body complaining to another government body about a company's claims. Uh what we >> in this case though correct me if I'm wrong >> uh the documents that we had did not um contain the conclusion of the case. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> No they did not. >> Did you try to find out what was the final view that the regulator took on this Patanjali honey? >> So we reached out to the regulator and the regulator has not responded to our queries. He also reached out to Patangjali uh and Patangjali had a very interesting response. They told us that
16:15 uh you should tell us what the correspondence between us and the regulator was. uh while uh in our questions we were detailed enough and we made it clear what the claims what the specific claims uh flagged by FSCI were but uh that was Patangjali's only response and the government has never responded >> since these documents that form the base of our investigation were obtained using right to information RTI did you try using RTI to get information on the conclusion of some of these cases you know the cases in which we weren't clear on the basis of these docu documents what view the regulator had taken eventually. >> Absolutely. Uh we reached out to the regulator not just through RTI but even via email and uh in both cases uh it we were unsuccessful. uh RTI was rejected
17:03 by FSCI under citing clauses of the RTI law related to commercial confidence and um information held in a fiduciary capacity meaning there is it's a confidential communication between the regulator and the company and uh now both of those clauses do exist within the RTI law and they exempt the government or any public authority from dulging information if uh they fall under these uh specific circumstances But built into the RTI law is an exemption even within an exception to the exemption and the exception is that if they if this serves larger public interest even if it may harm commercial confidence the regulator or any other public authority is bound to share it. Uh by rejecting our RTI requests the
17:49 FSCI has made it stand pretty clear that it does not consider this to be public interest. >> That's quite crazy because there can't be anything more gerine to the public interest than food. I mean it's essential to public health as we know >> and as I said earlier as a consumer it's my right to know >> what the food regulator is doing in this domain. In fact the food regulator should be putting this information out regularly of claims that it has found to be misleading claims by food companies major major brands and it's it's not doing that it's not even giving information in response to RTI. Um this of course is just about misleading claims but as part of this investigation you also looked broadly at what else the government is trying to do to contain
18:35 the spread of these ultrarocessed uh food products that are high in fat, sugar and salt. What did you find? So the government in 2017 came up with uh what it calls uh national multis sectoral action plan NAP uh that was supposed to reign in uh the reg uh reign in the marketing and production of products uh that are high in fat, sugar and salt or HFSS as they are commonly called. uh and this was in 2017 and uh we were able to access documents internal documents from the government related to the progress of uh this action plan and we are now in 2026 and I can it's it's it's a sad thing but the viewers should know that uh there's been no progress. >> What were some of the proposals in that
19:21 action plan? So proposals included uh amendments to uh how companies are allowed to advertise their products uh once they are classified as HFSS. Uh it included a syntax or a g an additional layer of GST um aimed at products that are high in fat, sugar and salt >> like the syntax on alcohol and tobacco. >> Absolutely. uh yeah and uh they also had other plans related to curbing uh what kind of marketing uh that these companies can do and uh uh front of pack labeling was another issue that came up. So currently in India we uh it's mandatory for companies to reveal what kind of ingredients they use and how much those ingredients correspond to your daily nutritional intake requirement but those are at the back of
20:07 pack. Uh but a front of pack label is something that you see right below the name of the product, the brand name and the tagline and the imagery and so on that tells the consumer upfront whether that product is uh healthy or not. And this is uh this has been seen globally that many countries are now have now mandated uh front of back labeling and on all these three counts these are the main three accounts uh the government has failed. So our plan to ensure that Indians eat healthy healthier it has derailed >> right since you mentioned um back of the pack front of the pack labeling it reminded me of one of the cases that you wrote about which was born vita >> u there was a controversy about uh the sugar absolutely
20:52 >> uh levels of this drink >> uh and I remember at that time the food regulator indirectly took credit for the sugar levels being brought down because it >> it does not actually put out data on uh the proceedings that take place, but it put out media reports saying that the food regulator had cracked down on several products. >> Um but you managed to access documents which revealed what actually happened behind the scenes. >> Tell us about that. So this is a classic example of big talk in public and uh so what happened in April 2023 is that a very popular um influencer food farmer he led this campaign against Bonvita uh pointing out that 100 gram of
21:37 bonvita has 37.4 g of sugar and bonvita the popular conception obviously built by the company is that it is meant for kids and 37.4 4 gram of sugar per 100 grams is incredibly high and uh he faced some legal challenges from Montles International which uh is the manufacturer of Bonvita and he took down his videos but eventually following public outcry the company reduced the sugar content from 37.4 to 32.2 g um so yeah uh that that that was the result of that controversy. Now while all of that is ongoing FSSCI and uh the national commission for protection of child rights they go out into the public and they create this image that we are uh doing something we are cracking down on
22:23 Bonvita and we are we out there to protect kids health so on but uh the documents revealed a very different story and they actually revealed a bigger concern for parents and public in general that uh Bonvita's u back of pack labeling where you are supposed to tell consumers uh what is the percent uh of the daily intake per nutrient uh is meant for adults. So basically the sugar content, the carbohydrates, protein etc. whatever you declare is declared considering the values for an average adult not for a child >> while the drink is being marketed to children >> to to children. Yes. And uh the packaging has uh kids photos on it. If you look at their ads, Tari Jitki and so
23:09 on, they'll always be about a child who's struggling and then the mother always a mother feeds them bonvita and now suddenly they are this super genius child or whatever. And they make these claims that uh it will improve physical strength, mental strength, immunity. Obviously, all of that is geared towards children. They also have a nutrition score and we checked that uh we actually I created a fictitious daughter of mine and uh uploaded her results and we we we were able to get that. So obviously uh the company is targeting the product uh and nudging people to buy it for kids. >> But u what FSI pointed out and this is very uh alarming is that you are misleading people to believe that this is for children >> uh because the percent values are agrement for adults.
23:54 >> So again this is the case where the food regulator itself raised these concerns with the company. >> Yes. >> But those concerns have not been addressed and we don't know whether any action was taken. We we do in fact know because we have access to the action taken report and uh but we don't know what Mandles uh said to FSSI. >> So what did the action taken report say? >> The uh FSCI was completely satisfied uh with Mandles's uh response and they said this is uh kosher. Go ahead. >> They've closed the case. >> They closed the case and but we don't know what uh >> on what basis they closed the case >> or what the arguments placed by uh Manderlay were >> and we tried to ask Mandlay. >> Yes. Yes. We have asked Mondles and we in fact in our RT application to FSSI also asked for correspondence between Mondlay and FSSI >> and did and and did we get any answers?
24:39 >> No, absolutely from neither. >> Neither. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Well, there is just so much opacity here >> as consumers. We have no idea what to believe, what not to believe. You mentioned this sort of food influencer. A lot of people >> are now watching content of food influencers. There are all these different you know organizations that have come up that are into testing and certification and but is any of this reliable? >> The owners should not be on influencers or journalists like us to tell the public about what is actually going on. The owner should be on the government. you know uh as the Supreme Court has pointed out that uh right to health is involved uh when it comes to citizens uh when it comes to these products and the kind of claims that these companies are
25:25 making and not just the Supreme Court even the economic survey uh published earlier this year it very clearly said that uh the regime for reigning in misleading claims is very bad uh so it is a very well-known fact but the fact is uh the government is doing little to nothing and uh as our investigations show FSCI has been incompetent in reigning in in curbing these misleading claims. Uh yeah and when it is their responsibility by law >> and at a time when the consumption of of these uh processed food products ultrarocessed food products has just been constantly rising. >> Absolutely. >> However, I know that the consumption is even higher in high income countries. Right. >> So how are these countries regulating
26:11 this space? So Supria uh a good example would be what uh has happened in the UK. But before I get to that, I must point out to our viewers that India while it is talking about uh the Indian government, economic survey etc. They're talking about uh HFSS which is uh foods high in fat, sugar and salt, we do not actually have a legally binding definition for what constitutes HFSS. Uh so that would be the first step for us to uh define what that is. uh to have a legally enforcable definition of what that is. But uh what if you look at uh other countries like the UK, they first obviously have a definition, a working legally binding definition. And once your product is classified as HFSS under that definition, there are curbs on uh how it can be marketed. So for example,
26:58 these products cannot be uh aired on TV between 5:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Uh advertisements of these products >> when children are likely to be watching. >> Yes. Exactly. uh even in store placements uh they cannot be prominently displayed uh at the side of an aisle at the entrance at checkouts etc. uh nobody can offer discounts like buy 1 get one free for products that are uh classified as HFSS. These products cannot do any online paid advertisements also. Uh but of course some surrogate advertisement exists. Yeah. Where companies can advertise their logos but not the specific HFSS classified products. >> So those are the kind of clubs that other countries are talking about. But if you compare India then we still don't even have a definition.
27:43 >> And and this has serious implications because also as part of your reporting you cited the example of cerillac product of Nestle >> the way that the same product was being sold in India and sold in countries like the UK you found that things were different. >> Yeah. Yeah. Uh these these are publicly available investigations by other organizations. Uh Nestle for example sells Cerillac in India with uh 3 g sugar whereas that does not exist in other countries. Um >> three g of added sugar. >> Added sugar. Yes. Uh and uh both the company and the government and the government has actually said this in parliament that they are in compliance with our provisions which raises a question not about the company but about your provisions. Why why are your provisions allowing infant food to have
28:30 added sugar when it is a uh consensus that bodies across research bodies across the world have arrived at that infant should not be fed any added sugar but that is happening in India and when a company is rightly called out and people even called it a new form of colonization when a company is rightly called out our government's response is oh but they are adhering to our law >> well there's a lot more to cover your investigations have been exhaustive but we're running out of time. >> Thanks for all the painstaking work that you've done on this uh subject and I'll urge our audience please go and read Shigir stories if you want to know more about misleading claims being made by food products that you're consuming. Uh [sighs] on that note a request this work is not easy. It takes a lot of time and
29:16 resources. Please subscribe to scroll to enable us to continue doing such investigations. Thanks for watching.
