Implementation of changes resulting from the Health Star Rating Five Year Review

The George Institute’s food policy team work in Australia and overseas to reduce death and disease caused by diets high in salt, harmful fats, added sugars and excess energy. The team does multi-disciplinary research with a focus on outputs that will help government and industry deliver a healthier food environment for all. 

The George Institute strongly supports HSR as an important step forward in improving nutrition labelling for consumers and supporting healthier diets. Our research suggests HSR is performing well overall, while also highlighting areas where the system must be strengthened to retain consumer trust and maximise public health impact. As a public health organization, we are best able to support and promote a revised HSR that addresses the legitimate public health and consumer concerns raised in the Review.
 
In these final stages, our support relies upon attention being directed to the following:

• Strengthening HSR’s algorithm by adopting Calculator 2. 
• Avoiding further delay in delivering an improved HSR to consumers. While acknowledging the impact of COVID-19 on all system stakeholders, we believe the proposed start date and two-year implementation period is more than sufficient to take possible disruptions into account.
• Taking concrete action now to make HSR mandatory. 
• Implementing improvements to HSR’s governance. 

 
The George Institute welcomes this opportunity to engage on implementation of changes resulting from Health Star Rating’s Five Year Review (HSR Review). 

For our full comments and additional modelling, please download the attached submission.