‘Racially stereotyped allegation is unfortunate’: Nestle India MD on sugar content row

Suresh Narayanan, MD and Chairman of Nestle India, said the report that accused it of selling baby products with more sugar content in lesser developed countries is “racially stereotyped” and unfortunate. Narayanan said that the sugar content in Nestle Cerelac products is less than the upper limit prescribed by Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). 

Talking to reporters in Gurugram, Narayanan said the infant food formulation for children below 18 months is done on a global basis. He said that the amount of sugar content in infant food is determined by the capability to meet the nutrition profile of a particular age group that is universal. 

Adding that the majority of sugars in Nestle products are natural sugars, Narayanan said, “There is nothing in this product that makes it a product that is potentially of any risk or any kind of harm to the child.” 

The Nestle India MD and Chairman said that Nestle sugar content is 7.1 grams, which is far below the standards and the maximum limit of 13.6 gram per 100 gram of feed, prescribed by FSSAI. 

“There is no local kind of approach to making a nutritional adequacy study…Globally, the recipes are engendered in an age where energy dense products are needed by growing children. So there is no distinction that is made between a child in Europe and a child in India or any other parts of the world,” Narayanan said. He said how the formulation gets translated into the product locally depends on different considerations. 

“I also want to add here very clearly that (both) added-sugar products and no-added-sugar products are present in Europe as well as in Asia. So the unfortunate allegation that it is racially stereotyped is unfortunate … untrue,” he said.

Narayanan said that the rationale behind the added sugar content in India would be to meet the ‘nutritional profile’, which could be different and the ingredients could be different too. 

“That we have the need in India is the reason why we have added this, but at levels which are much lower than what is even specified by the local regulator and I think one has to have the trust and confidence that the local regulator knows what we are putting there. So, it’s not a dramatic deviation that has been done,” he said.

So, he said, “What all that we’re saying is that, yes added sugar is there, the content is declared in our packs. There has been a 30 per cent reduction in the last five years and there is a further journey to reduce it to whatever will be the bare minimum.”

Narayanan acknowledged that FSSAI has sought information on the sugar content in Cerelac from Nestle India through a “set of questions”.

The report in question was findings by Swiss NGO, Public Eye and International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), that said that Nestle sold baby products with higher sugar content in less developed South Asian countries including India, and in African and Latin American nations, as compared to Europe.