Health Star Rating System: updates and proposed improvements

Health Star Rating System five-year review

In 2019, a five year review of the Health Star Rating System was completed, and in late 2019 Food Ministers responded to the report and its recommendations, agreeing to implement several improvements to the Health Star Rating system from November 2020.¹ Key changes that followed the five-year review included:

• The algorithm used to calculate star ratings was updated, with the stated intention to better align the Health Star Rating to dietary guidelines. The calculator was updated to more strongly penalise total sugars and sodium, to a limited extent. Category definitions related to dairy, jellies and water-based ice confections, and milk alternatives were updated.
• Fresh (unprocessed) and minimally processed fruit and vegetables without added fat, sugars and sodium now receive an automatic rating of 5 stars.
• Changes were made to the way ratings apply to non-dairy beverages. Unsweetened flavoured waters now receive an automatic 4.5 star rating, with an automatic 5 star rating continuing to apply to packaged plain water. The algorithm also changed for this category, and most fruit juices now receive lower ratings.
• The energy icon (a graphic declaring a product’s energy content) could no longer be displayed by itself, without an accompanying star rating.

Proposed improvements

The five-year review did not address all changes to the HSR system recommended by public health and consumer groups. In addition, over the time since the review was completed in 2019, further evidence of best practice front-of-pack labelling from Australia and around the world has emerged. Public health and consumer organisations support many changes to the current HSR system. Many of these views were presented to FSANZ during its 2025 Call for information on the Health Star Rating and Nutrition Information Panel.² Some of the major areas for possible reform that have been raised by researchers and/or public health organisations include:

1. Making the system mandatory

The effectiveness of the HSR in supporting public health and consumer outcomes is undermined by low uptake, as it does not allow consumers to make comparisons across the full range of products available to them and does not adequately incentivise industry reformulation. There is broad support across public health and consumer organisations to make the Health Star Rating mandatory, with the view that a mandatory system would improve population health, ensure consistent application across all products and address issues with selective uptake, enable more informed, healthier food choices and encourage reformulation and improve product composition.²

Groups supporting mandatory uptake include the Australian Medical Association, Food for Health Alliance, the Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, Dietitians Australia, The George Institute for Global Health, the Public Health Association of Australia, Consumers Health Forum of Australia and Consumers Federation of Australia.³

After the five-year review, Food Ministers did not make the system mandatory, but set a target for Health Star Ratings to be displayed on 70% of products by November 2025, with interim targets of 50% by November 2023 and 60% by November 2024.⁴ Uptake by industry has not met these targets so far, with only around a third of intended products on supermarket shelves featuring a Health Star Rating as of November 2024.⁵

The voluntary nature of the Health Star Rating system has resulted in variable uptake between product categories, and even within them. For example, uptake of Health Star Ratings has been shown to be higher in categories where products scored a higher average Health Star Rating.⁶ Public health advocates argue that the voluntary system limits consumers’ ability to use the system effectively, due to this selective and limited application.²

In 2024, Food Ministers expressed their disappointment in the uptake of the system, noting that results are ‘significantly off-track’ to reach the final target by the end of 2025.⁷ Ministers’ agreed that FSANZ and FRSC should work together to begin preparatory work to inform Ministers’ future decision making on mandating the system.

2. Improved governance of the Health Star Rating

Evidence shows that, in some cases, trust in the Health Star Rating is relatively low, with FSANZ suggesting this may be due to perceptions that the scheme is not sufficiently regulated by government.⁸ Consumers also previously reported scepticism on how star ratings are calculated, caused by perceived lack of transparency around the criteria⁹, and distrust of industry involvement or motivations around the Health Star Rating¹⁰.The development, implementation and the review of the Health Star Rating has also included considerable industry involvement, contrary to best practice recommendations.¹¹¹² Strengthened government leadership, improved governance arrangements, and expanded consumer education related to the HSR system is likely needed to instil greater consumer trust in the Health Star Rating.¹³¹⁰

The Health Star Rating Advisory Committee (HSRAC) is responsible for providing guidance and support to the implementation of the Health Star Rating system, and includes members from the Australian, New Zealand and State and Territory governments, FSANZ, public health, a consumer representative and the food industry.¹⁴ In 2024, Food Ministers delegated the oversight of the Health Star Rating Advisory Committee to the Food Regulation Standing Committee (a group of government officials from the Commonwealth, New Zealand and all states and territories),⁷ a decision that was welcomed by public health groups, such as the Public Health Association of Australia.¹⁵ This shifted greater responsibility for administrative and policy decisions to government officials.

Governance of the Health Star Rating System could be further improved by strengthening processes and safeguards to guide or limit policy engagement with stakeholders with real or perceived commercial conflicts of interest.¹⁶¹⁷ For example, this could include the establishment of an independent and transparent process for ongoing monitoring and review of the HSR system to ensure its effectiveness.² More broadly, mandating the Health Star Rating and increasing enforcement (including introducing sanctions for noncompliance) are major steps to strengthen governance of the system.¹⁸

3. Revising the nutrient profile model and algorithm

Public health and consumer groups have called for several changes to the calculator to improve alignment with dietary guidelines, and to resolve anomalies whereby some unhealthy products score highly. Some of these proposed changes include:²

• Stronger penalisation for sugars and sodium and the inclusion of added sugar. Public health organisations argue that this is needed because there are too many products high in added sugar and sodium that receive high ratings, and this undermines the purpose of and consumer confidence in the system.
• Reviewing how positive components (protein, fibre and fruit, vegetable, nut and legume (FVNL)) are treated within the algorithm to ensure these do not inappropriately offset the impact of negative components.¹⁷
• Modifying the algorithm to include a measure of the level of processing: With some emerging evidence around the potential adverse health effects of ultra-processed foods, some public health groups have called for the Health Star Rating system to consider levels of processing. Researchers have modelled changes to the current algorithm to factor in markers of ultra-processing, showing these modifications may prevent high ratings being assigned to unhealthy, ultra-processed foods.¹⁹

Content for this page was updated by Jasmine Chan and Gary Sacks at GLOBE, Institute for Health Transformation, Deakin University and reviewed by Damian Maganja at The George Institute for Global Health. For more information about the approach to content on the site please see About | Obesity Evidence Hub.