"Compliance with Codex standards does not equal public-health responsibility." Discuss with reference to added sugars in infant foods in India.

The Codex Alimentarius, the FAO/WHO food-standards body, sets a global minimum for infant cereals [1]. India's FSS (Foods for Infant Nutrition) Regulations, 2020 permit limited sucrose and fructose [2]. The 2024 Cerelac controversy showed that a product can be legally compliant and still fall short of public-health best practice.

Arguments that compliance is enough

• Legal certainty: Nestlé India said Cerelac had 7.1 g of sugar per 100 g against a permitted 13.6 g [3]. Firms cannot be penalised for following the law.
• Gradual reformulation: The company said it cut added sugar by up to 30% over five years [4]. It launched variants with no refined sugar in 2024 [5].
• Harmonisation: Codex standards are negotiated by member states, so they ease trade and give a shared scientific baseline.

Why compliance is not the same as responsibility

• Double standards: 15 Cerelac products sold in India averaged 2.7 g of added sugar per serving, while the same product had none in the UK and Germany [6]. This is "nutritional dumping", and it shows the sugar is a business choice, not a technical need.
• Codex is a floor: Countries are free to set stricter rules. WHO's 2023 guideline advises against sugary foods for children aged 6–23 months [7]. The WHO Europe NPPM (2022) judges the finished product and its marketing for ages 6–36 months [8].
• Ethical dimension: Infants cannot choose. Early exposure to sweet tastes can shape lifelong preferences, which worsens India's double burden of malnutrition.
• Reactive regulator: FSSAI began its probe only after the Public Eye–IBFAN report [6]. Nestlé later praised FSSAI as "industry-centred" [9], which suggests a risk of regulatory capture.
• Gaps in the draft rule: The October 2026 draft bans sucrose and fructose only for 0–6 months [10], when WHO advises exclusive breastfeeding anyway. Cereals for 6–24 months and fruit-sugar substitutes remain uncovered.

Way forward

• Extend the no-added-sugar rule to 24 months and set a free-sugar limit for the finished food, using an NPPM-style model [8].
• Set time-bound phase-in deadlines, and have FSSAI test the same brands across markets.
• Enforce the IMS Act, 1992 limits on marketing [11] together with the rules on what goes into the product.

Codex compliance shows a product is legal. It does not show the product is good for an infant's long-term health. India should go beyond the Codex minimum and treat both what goes into infant food and how it is marketed as one public-health problem. That would honour the Article 47 duty to raise nutrition levels and help meet SDG 2.2 and SDG 3.4.