Are Indian Products Really That Much Worse?

Did you know that a standard 750ml bottle of orange soda sold in India, has just over half a cup of sugar^[1]? 

The exact same drink, from the exact same company, sold in France, has less than half as much sugar in it^[1]. Nothing about the recipe requires this difference. Somewhere between the two countries, for some reason, this was decided and India just got the shorter end of the stick. This isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern, and once you know where to look, you’ll start spotting it everywhere.

Let’s Start With What’s Actually On Your Shelf

Before we get into why this happens, it helps to just see it. You’ll probably guess the brand behind each one before we get to the end of the sentence.

The soda: half a cup of sugar, and a warning that never made it to India

That orange soda from the opening isn’t just heavier on sugar, at 13.7 grams of sugar per 100ml, which works out to roughly 24 teaspoons in a 750ml bottle^[1]. It also uses a synthetic dye that, on European packaging, comes with a visible caution about its effect on children’s attention. On the Indian bottle, that same dye is disclosed, but only inside the small print of the ingredient list, easy to miss unless you’re actually looking for it^[1][2].

The chocolate bar that’s barely chocolate

Next, a chocolate wafer bar with the most iconic packaging and ad campaigns. The Indian version runs at roughly 4.5% cocoa solids. The same bar sold in Australia carries at least 22%, nearly five times more of the ingredient that actually makes chocolate taste like chocolate^[2]. Nothing on either wrapper is technically dishonest, cocoa content isn’t something labels are required to print, but the word “chocolate” is doing a lot more work in one country than the other.

The noodles that warn everyone except you

Then there’s the two-minute instant noodle brand present in practically every Indian kitchen. The Indian pack is cooked in palm oil and carries no front-of-pack warning at all. Versions of that very same brand, some even made in Indian factories for export, use sunflower oil and carry a bold red high-salt warning on the front, simply because the destination country’s law demands it^[2]. 

Even baby food isn’t spared

A recent investigation into infant cereal brands sold across several emerging markets, India among them, found that 94% of the products tested contained added sugar, averaging around 4 grams a serving^[3]. The same cereals sold across parts of Europe have gone without any added sugar for years, simply because that’s how they’d always been made there^[3][4]. 

The breakfast cereal that’s saltier here than almost anywhere else

A global survey of the same corn flakes brand across 29 countries found India’s version carrying more salt than any other market measured, 1.93 grams per 100g, 46% more than the same box sold in Argentina or Brazil^[5]. 

The chips cooked in whatever’s cheapest 

One of India’s most familiar packaged snack brands has long cooked its chips in palm oil here, while the same brand’s American version uses sunflower, corn, or canola oil instead, the kind linked to better cholesterol numbers^[6]. To its credit, the company has recently started trialling a switch to healthier oils in India too. 

The soup that’s mostly water and flour, not vegetables

And then there’s the instant soup sachet sitting on most Indian kitchen shelves. Its tomato soup contains roughly 6.9% actual tomato. The same brand’s UK tomato soup contains about 28%, four times as much of the ingredient the soup is named after, with refined flour standing in for a lot of what’s missing here^[7]. It’s less a bowl of tomato soup and more a bowl of flavoured starch water, and most people are unaware of this.

This Is a Food Systems Problem, Not Just a Brand Problem

Here’s the thing worth understanding before pointing fingers at any single company: none of this happens because a brand woke up and decided to shortchange one country. It happens because every country hands manufacturers a different rulebook, and companies build to whichever rulebook they’re handed. India’s own back-of-pack disclosure, the ingredient lists and allergen declarations you’d find on any pack, is already broadly solid^[8]. So before asking why a product looks different here, it helps to actually see the rulebooks laid out side by side.

Region	What’s on the front of the pack	Legal status	What it means standing at the shelf
India	Nothing yet, a symbol has been proposed and withdrawn since 2022	Not mandatory, still under Supreme Court review	You flip the pack and work it out yourself
United States	Back-of-pack panel, added sugars called out on their own line	Mandatory since 2021	Detailed, but still nothing on the front to glance at
France	Nutri-Score, a single A-to-E letter grade	Government-backed, dominant on French shelves	One letter answers the question before you read anything else
United Kingdom	Red, amber, or green dots for fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt	Voluntary, but on almost every shelf anyway	Colour alone tells you what to watch for
Australia & NZ	Health Star Rating, half a star to five stars	Mandatory in Australia since 2025	One star count sums up the whole pack

Notice what’s missing from India’s row. Not the back-of-pack detail, that part already holds up reasonably well^[8][9]. It’s the one glance-and-decide signal every other row already has in some form^[10]. That single missing piece is the actual gap, and unlike most systemic problems, it’s a genuinely fixable one.

Here’s the Genuinely Good News, A Better Label Actually Works

Fixing this doesn’t require inventing anything new, reformulating an entire industry overnight, or waiting on a miracle. It just requires a label simple enough to read in the two seconds you’re actually willing to give it, and we already have hard evidence that this works.

Country	What happened once labels got easier to read
Chile	Purchases of sugar, sodium, and saturated fat fell 20%, 14%, and 10% against the prior trend, once black warning labels went on pack.
Mexico	Added sugar sales fell 25%. Most of that came from manufacturers reformulating to dodge the warning, not shoppers alone changing their minds.
France	Nutri-Score’s simple A-to-E grade measurably shifted shopping baskets toward healthier scores as more stores adopted it.

Three different countries, three different label designs, the same underlying result: a symbol simple enough to read at a glance moves both what people buy and what companies choose to make.

In Chile, Mexico, and France, purchases changed^[11][12], and manufacturers reformulated their own products to stay off the warning list entirely^[12]. Nobody had to become a nutrition expert to make a better choice. The label simply did the thinking for them, for exactly as long as it takes to glance at a shelf.

A Fair Caveat Before We Wrap Up It’s worth saying plainly: this probably isn’t a story about any company trying to cut corners just in India. India is a deeply cost-sensitive market, and a cheaper formulation, a different oil, a bit more sugar or salt to make up for a lower price point, may genuinely just be a reflection of what keeps a product affordable for hundreds of millions of people. But affordability and awareness aren’t the same thing, and one shouldn’t have to come at the cost of the other. India is home to nearly 90 million adults living with diabetes, the second-largest diabetic population on the planet, a country long spoken of as the world’s diabetes capital[13]. In a country carrying that weight, knowing what’s actually in your bottle, your pack, or your child’s cereal box isn’t optional information. It’s the least anyone should be able to expect while standing in front of a shelf.

What This Actually Means for You

You don’t need to give up your favourite soda, swear off chocolate, or panic over a noodle pack tonight. What’s actually worth taking from this is smaller and more useful: read past the front of the pack, once in a while flip it over, and don’t assume a product sold under a familiar name is automatically the same product you’d get somewhere else. The label may not be telling you everything yet, but the more people ask why, the sooner that starts to change, and that pressure, in every country that’s tried it, has worked.

SOURCES

[1] First Check, “The great Fanta divide: Same drink, different countries, different ingredients?” https://firstcheck.in/the-great-fanta-divide-same-drink-different-countries-different-ingredients/

[2] The Federal, “One product, same brand: Why does India get the ‘unhealthier’ version?” https://thefederal.com/category/news/same-brand-sells-different-version-in-indian-market-more-sugar-more-fat-254824

[3] NBC News, “Report finds Nestlé adds sugars to baby food in low-income countries,” April 2024. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/report-finds-nestle-adds-sugars-baby-food-low-income-countries-rcna150562

[4] Public Eye, “Africa’s baby food sugar scandal,” 2024. https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/critical-view-on-consumerism/africas-baby-food-sugar-scandal

[5] World Action on Salt, Sugar & Health, international breakfast cereal survey, 2016 (reported via The Grocer, “Kellogg’s and Nestlé under fire for sugar variations globally”). https://www.worldactiononsalt.com/research/wasshsurveys/2016/

[6] Business Standard, “PepsiCo India starts trials to replace palm oil in Lay’s: Here’s why,” 2024. https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/pepsico-india-starts-trials-to-replace-palm-oil-in-lay-s-here-s-why-124050900191_1.html

[7] Storyboard18, “Food influencer flags ingredient gaps between Knorr India and UK soups, sparks quality debate.” https://www.storyboard18.com/social-media/food-influencer-flags-ingredient-gaps-between-knorr-india-and-uk-soups-sparks-quality-debate-86408.htm

[8] S.S. Rana & Co., “Pre-Packaged Food Products and Labelling Regulations.” https://ssrana.in/articles/pre-packaged-food-products-and-labelling-regulations/

[9] U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Changes to the Nutrition Facts Label.” https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/changes-nutrition-facts-label

[10] Business Standard, “Front-of-pack labels: Where India stands vs global food labelling systems,” 2026. https://www.business-standard.com/economy/news/front-of-pack-labels-where-india-stands-vs-global-food-labelling-systems-126082100626_1.html

[11] Global Food Research Program, “Chileans bought less sugar, salt, saturated fat, and calories… after trailblazing warning label law.” https://www.globalfoodresearchprogram.org/chileans-bought-less-sugar-salt-saturated-fat-and-calories-at-the-grocery-store-after-trailblazing-warning-label-law-with-high-compliance-from-the-food-industry/

[12] Global Food Research Program, “Mexico’s front-of-package warning labels are improving nutrition of food supply and purchases.” https://www.globalfoodresearchprogram.org/mexicos-front-of-package-warning-labels-are-improving-nutrition-of-food-supply-and-purchases/

[13] IDF Diabetes Atlas (International Diabetes Federation), India country data, 2024; The Tribune, “India home to world’s second largest diabetes population in 2024: Study.” https://diabetesatlas.org/data-by-location/country/india/