Since 2023, Natfirst, a product-intelligence firm, has been building up to tell consumers what’s in their packaged foods. 

In July 2023, it launched its Truthin rating system (TIRS) to rate the nutritional content in packaged foods, something the government has been trying to implement for years now.

Earlier this month, the Truthin app and this very ranking system were awarded by the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN), at a first-of-its-kind event where the government called on startups to showcase tech and ideas that would improve India’s health and nutrition. 

Typically, the government has refrained from partnering with early-stage startups for policy-related tech. But now it’s calling on them, since existing infrastructure for building health and nutritional awareness isn’t cutting it.

This is the stamp of approval that Ravi Teja, co-founder of Natfirst, and his team were waiting for. 

Since 2014, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been trying, and failing, to implement a system that issues warnings upfront about a product’s nutritional value. In 2022, they released a draft of guidelines for front-of-package nutrition labelling (FOPNL) that follows a health star rating system. Following public petitions and the Supreme Court directives earlier this year, the system should have come into effect in July 2025. But it’s already December, and nothing yet.

The Rajya Sabha committee’s report on FSSAI’s Food Safety & Standards (Labelling & Display) Amendment Regulations will be tabled in parliament later in December.

The hold up so far seems to be that no ranking system is efficient enough. When brand and industry experts raised alarm bells over the proposed health stars, the regulator withdrew implementation.

Natfirst’s ranking system tried to solve for this. While health stars are based on nutrition math, calculated per 100 grams, and allow for ultra-processed food to hide behind a decent rating, the Truthin rating system (TIRS) focuses on ingredient transparency, using specific labels and warnings to highlight harmful additives and processing levels.

While regulators pit one option against another, food brands oppose the move altogether.  

“The relationship of FSSAI with the food industry is long, and quite cosy,” said Arun Gupta, MD and convener of think tank Nutrition Advocacy for Public Interest (NAPi) and former member of the PM’s Council on India’s Nutrition Challenges.