How to Read an Indian Food Label: A Plain Guide

What must every Indian food label show?

Packed food in India follows rules from FSSAI, India's food safety regulator: the Labelling and Display Regulations, 2020 [1]. Most packed food must show the food's real name on the front, an ingredient list and a nutrition table. It also needs a veg or non-veg mark, the FSSAI logo and licence number, a batch number and the dates. Allergens must be listed on their own [1].

• Name. The name on the front must say what the food really is. A brand name can sit next to it [1].
• Ingredients. Listed from most to least by weight, as the food was made. A single-ingredient food can skip the list [1].
• Nutrition table. Per 100 g or 100 ml, or per pack for a single-serve pack. It must list energy, protein, carbohydrate and fat. It must also list total sugars, added sugars, saturated fat, trans fat and sodium in mg. Saturated and trans fat can be left out when total fat is 0.5% or less. Cholesterol is needed only when the food has animal fat and more than 0.5% fat. The table also shows the serving size and the number of servings in the pack [1]. Saturated fat and trans fat are the kinds of fat that ICMR-NIN, India's national nutrition institute, asks people to limit [5]. A few simple foods can skip the table, like salt, plain spices, plain tea and coffee, and unprocessed single-ingredient foods [1].
• Veg or non-veg mark. Veg is a green filled circle inside a square with a green outline. Non-veg is a brown filled triangle inside a square with a brown outline [1]. Packaged water, soda water, liquid milk, milk powder and honey do not need it [1].
• What counts as non-veg. Any food with animal parts, eggs or products of animal origin. Milk, milk products and honey do not count [1].
• FSSAI logo and licence number. It must stand out from the background. The brand owner's licence number is a must. If someone else made or packed it, their licence number is needed too [1].
• Dates. The date of manufacture or packing and an 'Expiry' or 'Use by' date are a must for most foods. A few, like solid sugar and hard boiled sweets, can skip the expiry date. 'Best before' is optional [1]. Food past its best before date may still be safe, though its quality may have dropped [1].
• Batch number. A batch, lot or code number is a must [1].
• Allergens. Listed separately after the word 'Contains': cereals with gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt), shellfish like prawns and crabs (written as 'Crustacean'), milk, eggs, fish, peanuts and tree nuts (both written as 'Nut'), soy, and sulphite, a preservative, at 10 mg per kg or more [1].
• Net quantity, MRP and customer care. These follow a different law on weights and measures [1].

Why read per 100 g and not per serving?

Per 100 g is the same for every pack, so you can compare two packs fairly. The brand picks the serving size, and a tiny serving makes every number look small. A pack can also hold more than one serving. Check the servings in the pack, then scale the numbers to what you actually eat [5].

The law makes packs show nutrition per 100 g or 100 ml, and a per-serve % of RDA [1]. Use the first to compare packs. Use the second only after you check the serving size.

What does % RDA on the pack mean?

RDA is short for Recommended Dietary Allowance. % RDA is the share of a day's amount that one serving gives you. FSSAI works it out from fixed daily figures: 2000 kcal, 67 g total fat, 22 g saturated fat, 2 g trans fat, 50 g added sugar and 2000 mg sodium (5 g salt) [1].

The 50 g for added sugar is well above what ICMR-NIN tells adults to stay within: 20 to 25 g a day in its main advice, and 25 to 30 g in its meal plans [1][5]. So '10% RDA' of added sugar is 5 g, a fifth of 25 g.

How do I find hidden sugar?

Read the ingredient list, not the front. Sugar can be listed under many names, like dextrose, liquid glucose, invert syrup, malt extract, honey and jaggery. A pack can use several of them, so each one sits lower on the list and looks small. Ingredients are listed from most to least by weight [1]. Count every sugar name, and check if one sits in the first 3 ingredients.

• In law, 'sugars' means the small sugars made of one or two sugar units, like glucose, fructose, maltose, sucrose and lactose. 'Added sugars' means those sugars added to a food or drink [1].
• The nutrition table must show added sugars as well as total sugars [1].
• FSSAI lets a pack write 'Sugar' for sucrose, and 'Dextrose' or 'Glucose' for dextrose [1].
• ICMR-NIN warns that a 'sugar free' food can still hold fats, refined flour and hidden sugars like maltitol, fructose, corn syrup and molasses [5].
• Maltodextrin is made from starch, as chains of glucose. Most of it is not a sugar in FSSAI's legal definition [1], so most of it shows in the carbohydrate line, not the sugar line.

Sugar names to look for

The Label Checker looks for every name in this table.

How do I turn sodium into salt?

Multiply sodium by 2.5. Salt is 40% sodium, so salt weighs about 2.5 times its sodium [5]. Labels often give sodium in mg, so divide by 1000 first to get grams.

• The label says 800 mg sodium per 100 g.
• 800 mg is 0.8 g.
• 0.8 x 2.5 = 2 g of salt per 100 g.
• That is 40% of the 5 g a day adult limit for salt, in 100 g.

FSSAI and WHO use the same pair: 2000 mg of sodium is 5 g of salt [1][6].

How much salt and sugar is too much in a day?

WHO tells adults to keep salt under 5 g a day in total. That is 2000 mg of sodium, or about one teaspoon [6]. ICMR-NIN gives the same 5 g line for adults [5]. For sugar, ICMR-NIN tells adults to avoid it or keep it to 20 to 25 g a day. Its sample meal plans allow 25 to 30 g [5].

• Free sugars are sugars added by the maker, the cook or you, plus the sugar in honey, syrups and fruit juices. The sugar inside fresh fruit and vegetables, and the sugar that is naturally in milk, does not count [7].
• WHO says free sugars should stay under 10% of a day's energy. WHO suggests going below 5%, which is about 25 g or 6 teaspoons a day [7].
• A lot of it comes from packed food. WHO says one can of sugary soda has up to 40 g of free sugars [7].
• ICMR-NIN sets cut-off numbers for packed or cooked food with added sugar, salt or fat. Per 100 g: under 250 kcal, under 3 g added sugar, under 4.2 g added fat and under 0.625 g salt. Per 100 ml of a drink: under 70 kcal, under 2 g added sugar, under 1.5 g added fat and under 0.175 g salt [5]. It calls a food high in fat, sugar or salt when it gives more than 250 kcal per 100 g because of added sugar or fat [5]. These are guidelines, not legal limits. FSSAI has told the Supreme Court its proposed warning limits would be based on these ICMR-NIN guidelines. The exact numbers are not out yet [10].

What do 'no added sugar' and 'natural' mean?

'No added sugar' means no sugar of any kind was added, no sugary ingredient went in, and nothing was used in place of sugar. If the food has its own sugars, the pack must also say 'Contains naturally occurring sugars' [2]. 'Natural' can only describe a single food with nothing added. A food made of several ingredients can at most say 'made from natural ingredients' [2].

• No added sugar, in full. No sugar of any kind is added, like sucrose, glucose, honey, molasses or corn syrup. No sugary ingredient goes in, like jam, jelly or sweetened chocolate. Nothing is used in place of sugar, like fruit juice concentrate or dried fruit paste. The making process must not raise the sugar either. For example, the maker cannot use enzymes (helpers that break food down) to turn starch into sugar [2].
• Low sugar. Not more than 5 g of sugars per 100 g for solids, or 2.5 g per 100 ml for liquids [2].
• Sugar free. Not more than 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g or 100 ml [2].
• Natural. Only basic processing is allowed, like roasting, drying, freezing, heating to kill germs (pasteurising) or fermenting. A food additive taken from a natural source by simple physical steps can also be called natural [2]. The same rule covers 'real' and 'genuine' [2].
• Pure. Only for a single-ingredient food with nothing added. A mixed food can at most say 'made with pure ingredients' [2]. If 'pure' is in a brand name and could mislead, the pack needs the brand-name disclaimer below [2].
• Brand names. Some brand names use words like natural, fresh, pure, original, traditional, authentic, genuine or real. If that could mislead, the front of the pack must print a line. It says: 'This is only a brand name or trademark, or fancy name and does not represent its true nature'. The smallest letter size goes from 1.5 mm on a small pack to 3 mm on a large one [2].
• Home-made. Words like 'home-made' and 'home cooked' are not allowed where they could mislead [2].
• Disease claims. No food claim can say the food prevents, eases, treats or cures a disease, unless another FSSAI rule allows it [2].

What is the front-of-pack warning FSSAI proposed?

It is a proposal, not a law yet. FSSAI has told the Supreme Court it plans a red hexagon warning on the front of packs, naming each nutrient over the limit: added sugar, added fat or salt [10]. On 28 September 2026, the Court heard the case. It will give its decision later [12]. The final design, limits and dates will come after the judgment.

• Status on 30 September 2026. The red hexagon is not a rule yet. FSSAI has not published it as a draft or as a final rule, and no limits are out. The 2022 star-rating draft was never made final. FSSAI told the Court in January 2026 that it plans to withdraw it [9][10][12].
• How it would look. A red hexagon on a white square. One nutrient over the limit would be enough to trigger it [10].
• Where the limits would come from. ICMR-NIN's Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024. They would apply however processed the food is [10]. See the ICMR-NIN figures above.
• Sweeteners. A separate warning was also proposed for foods with a sweetener that has no calories, like the ones in diet drinks. The proposed words were 'CONTAIN NON CALORIC SWEETENER' [10].
• Timeline FSSAI asked for. About 4 months to prepare draft rules. Then a round of public comments. After the final rules come out, a 365-day period when using the label is a choice, not a must, so companies can use up packs already printed [11][12].
• The Court's questions. The judges asked why FSSAI needs a 1-year period when the label is a choice, not a must, and another round of public comments. Both sides had 3 days to send their last points in writing [10][12].

How it got here

• 13 September 2022. FSSAI's draft star rating for packs, the 'Indian Nutrition Rating' [8][9]. About 14,000 comments came in on it by April 2023 [9].
• 9 April 2025. The Supreme Court told FSSAI's expert committee to finish its recommendations within 3 months [8].
• 9 October 2025. A committee of senior government officials said the star draft was not fit to finalise in its current form [9].
• January 2026. FSSAI told the Court it plans to withdraw the star draft, because people did not agree on it [9].
• February 2026. The Supreme Court asked FSSAI to consider warning labels on the front of packs [11].
• 10 September 2026. The Court asked FSSAI more questions about its plan to bring the warning in two steps, including the limits and the timeline. FSSAI then proposed one warning for any single nutrient over the limit [10][11].

Checked on 30 September 2026. The Court has not given its judgment yet.