Health leaders push for mandatory Health Star Ratings as food industry fails to meet government target

With food industry uptake of Health Star Ratings stalling at just 37 per cent — well short of the government's 70 per cent target — a coalition of leading health organisations including The George Institute, the Australian Medical Association and VicHealth have written to Food Ministers ahead of their 13 February 2026 meeting urging them to make the front-of-pack labelling system mandatory on all packaged foods.

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We've seen slow and selective adoption of Health Star Ratings by food manufacturers, with companies often using the ratings on higher-scoring products while leaving low-scoring products unlabelled.

Mandatory labelling would close that loophole and ensure Australians get the same easy-to-understand information on every product, not just the ones companies choose to highlight.

By:

Associate Professor Alexandra Jones

Program Lead – Food Governance, The George Institute for Global Health

For details, please refer to the joint media release.