Maharashtra’s Food and Drugs Administration Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe on Friday questioned the ethics of global food and beverage companies that sell products with different nutritional standards in India and other countries, saying their responsibility towards consumers should extend beyond simply complying with local laws.
Mundhe’s remarks come amid a growing debate over the way multinational companies formulate, package and label the same products differently across markets, taking into account local regulations, consumer preferences and purchasing power. News agency Reuters has done a report examining these variations.
One example highlighted in the report was Fanta. A similarly sized can sold in London contains 63 calories, while the version sold in India contains 185 calories and about three times as much sugar.
“Where are ethics in this? Companies should not only abide by legal compliances but also practise ethical behaviour. Why the different standard?” Mundhe said while responding to the findings. “They have responsibility towards society,” he added.
The remarks by Mundhe, who has become the nation’s most prominent state food safety officials in the past few weeks, come amid a growing debate in the country over the nutritional quality of packaged food and beverages and the need for clearer health warnings for consumers.
Mundhe has gained attention for his strict enforcement drives in Maharashtra, where food safety teams have recently inspected and raided several establishments, including major restaurant chains, over hygiene-related violations.
The debate over nutritional standards has also brought renewed attention to India’s proposed front-of-pack warning labels, which are intended to give consumers clearer information about the nutritional content of packaged foods.
The Reuters report said Coca-Cola and industry groups representing Nestle, PepsiCo and other companies had lobbied against India’s proposed warning-label system, despite some of these companies voluntarily using similar labels on their products in several European markets.
According to the report, India’s food regulator faced opposition to the proposed labels during a March meeting, including an argument from a Coca-Cola executive that warning labels would not stop consumers from eating sugary foods and that Indian doctors were already advising people about unhealthy food.
Mundhe rejected that argument in a LinkedIn post while sharing the Reuters report. “Warning labels don’t insult consumer intelligence, they respect it,” he wrote.
He further argued that asking doctors to advise patients about unhealthy food misses the larger point of prevention. “The argument that doctors already advise patients misses the point: prevention should not depend on already being sick,” he said.
The issue of front-of-pack labelling has also come under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, which has criticised delays in implementing such warnings and called for their urgent introduction.
Meanwhile, Nestle’s global CEO said this week that India should consult food manufacturers while framing regulations for front-of-pack health labelling on food and beverages, arguing that the rules should be developed “scientifically”.
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Published By:
Shipra Parashar
Published On:
Aug 28, 2026 20:35 IST
