The latest trigger is a controversy over Mondelez‘s Cadbury Bournvita, which flared up last week after social media influencer Revant Himatsingka made a video, highlighting the level of sugar in the milk food drink. The video went viral with calls like ‘#BoycottBournvita’, following which Mondelez’s law firm sent him a legal notice, leading to Himatsingka apologising and deleting the video on April 14. His Twitter account was also suspended.
Activist body Consumer Voice has written to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (Fssai) and the department of consumer affairs, under the ministry of consumer affairs, food & public distribution, urging them to revise the regulations and labelling guidelines for the entire category.
Consumer Voice chief operating officer Ashim Sanyal told ET: “We are escalating the matter to the relevant government authorities to clamp down on so-called ‘health’ foods brands targeted at children, making false and misleading claims on their packs about being ‘healthy’ when many of them actually contain sugar well beyond the prescribed limits.”
Besides Bournvita, Hindustan Unilever‘s Horlicks and Boost, Nestle‘s Milo are the other big brands in the category.
NAPi India (Nutrition Advocacy in Public Interest), a think-tank on nutrition, tweeted: “The argument about Bournvita’s ingredients per serve is even more manipulative. Bournvita has almost 50% sugar per 100 grams. It’s way beyond the high sugar thresholds prescribed by WHO.” It tagged the World Health Organization, which has over 12 million followers on Twitter.
A Mondelez spokesperson said in an email that Bournvita is a “scientifically formulated product”. Stating that the video in question has created “panic and anxiety”, she said: “That is why we were concerned by a recent unscientific video on social media that went abnormally viral, distorted facts and made false and negative inferences about Bournvita’s safety and efficacy.”
The spokesperson said as the company “continued to witness an abnormal and unusual amount of traction on the post”, it was “constrained” to take legal recourse to avoid misinformation. “We would like to clarify that we had no play in actions around the presenter’s Twitter account,” she added.
According to the spokesperson, every serve of 20 gm of Bournvita has 7.5 grams of added sugar, which is “much less than the daily recommended intake limits of sugar for children”. So far, the Fssai has not commented on the matter, and an email seeking comment from the regulator remained unanswered at press time on Tuesday. Some experts said the matter needs to be viewed on the overall ingredients in the products instead of just sugar.
“The category had stood for nutrition long enough and we should take a holistic view of understanding the benefits of macronutrients like protein and micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, instead of a myopic lens which captures just one ingredient – sugar,” said Tarun Arora, chief executive at Zydus Wellness, which sells Complan, SugarFree and Nutralite. “For instance, Complan is clinically proven to provide benefits including nutrition, energy and protein and can support all its claims,” Arora added.
However, medical organisations and doctors too called on the government to make it mandatory for products marketed as “health drinks” to declare levels of sugar prominently on pack fronts. Paediatrician Arun Gupta tweeted: “Influencer deletes post on Bournvita after legal notice from Cadbury. This is the reality of our governance of unhealthy food products; governments fail to control.”
