Reformulating for a Better Health Star Rating

The Health Star Rating is the front-of-pack symbol Australian and New Zealand shoppers have seen for more than a decade, the half-star to five-star mark that sums up a packaged food's nutritional profile at a glance, and it remains voluntary. Food Standards Australia New Zealand says so in its own words on the proposal page: "The HSR system is currently voluntary." What changed in 2026 is that food ministers asked FSANZ to test the case for writing the rating into the Food Standards Code, and FSANZ published Proposal P1067 on 21 April 2026 to do exactly that. Status as at 13 September 2026: the first call for submissions ran 7 May to 5 July 2026 and has closed, a second round has not opened, no draft variation exists, and ministers have made no final decision. For product developers the practical question is the same one it always was, and it is better answered before a rule arrives than after: how do you lift the rating. Most of the answer is reformulation, and a large part of reformulation is flavour.

How the Health Star Rating Is Calculated

The rating comes from a single published algorithm rather than a judgement call. Food Standards Australia New Zealand is the independent manager of that algorithm and the calculator built around it, and the system has run across both countries since June 2014. A manufacturer enters a product's nutrition figures, the calculator scores them, and the result is a rating from half a star to five stars in half-star steps, where more stars mean a better nutritional profile for that kind of food. Products are scored within categories so that like is compared with like, a drink against other drinks and a cheese against other cheeses, which is also why the rating is meant for comparing similar products rather than ranking a yoghurt against a biscuit.

Which Nutrients Move the Score

The algorithm works on two sets of points. Baseline points come from the components the system treats as risks, energy in kilojoules, saturated fat, total sugars and sodium, each measured per 100 grams or 100 millilitres. Modifying points come from the components it rewards, protein, dietary fibre, and the proportion of fruit, vegetables, nuts and legumes. The modifying points are subtracted from the baseline points and the final figure is converted to a star rating using a table for the product's category. The direction is straightforward: bring down the energy, saturated fat, total sugars or sodium and the rating tends to rise, and add genuine protein, fibre or fruit and vegetable content and it rises as well. One detail catches developers out. The sugar input is total sugars, not added sugars, so sugar that arrives through fruit concentrate or another natural-sounding route counts the same as table sugar.

What the Five-Year Review Changed

The algorithm is not fixed for all time. An independent five-year review reported in 2019 and made ten recommendations, all of which the food ministers agreed to. The changes that followed sharpened the very levers a reformulator pulls. Total sugars and sodium were penalised more strongly, so the same cut now moves the score further than it once did. Fresh, frozen or canned fruit and vegetables with no added fat, sugar or salt were set to receive an automatic five stars, and the ratings of five food group dairy items such as yoghurt and cheese were lifted while less healthy versions were brought down. The energy-only icon, an option that showed kilojoules without any stars, was removed, so a product can no longer sidestep the star scale. The review deliberately strengthened the total-sugars penalty rather than introduce a separate added-sugars measure, largely because of the complexity that would involve.

Why Uptake Put the Rating Under Review

Uptake is why the system is under review at all. The final voluntary target was 70 per cent of intended products displaying the rating by 14 November 2025, and it was missed. The Food Ministers' Meeting communique of 13 February 2026 records the Year 5 (2025) HSR Monitoring Report as confirming "that the final uptake target of 70% of intended products displaying the HSR by November 2025 was not met, with uptake at 39% in Australia and 36% in New Zealand." Read the denominator carefully, because intended products is a scheme-defined subset rather than every packaged food on the shelf. On that evidence ministers agreed, in the communique's own words, "by majority" to "request FSANZ prepare a Proposal on mandating the HSR system in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code." FSANZ's assessment in P1067 is that "Based on current evidence, amending the Code to mandate the HSR system appears warranted", and the approach it put out for comment would involve "requiring the HSR symbol to be displayed on most packaged foods for retail sale where a nutrition information panel is required", standardising the symbol's design and location, and "requiring use of a prescribed Health Star Rating algorithm". The proposal runs under the FSANZ major procedure with two consultation rounds, and only the first has been held.

What the Reformulation Targets Actually Moved

The voluntary reformulation programme that sits alongside the rating was revised in the same window, and its measured record is the honest calibration for any star-lift target. On 25 August 2026 the Healthy Food Partnership Executive Committee "endorsed the revised reformulation targets with continued monitoring of achievements to be undertaken by the Partnership Secretariat", and the supporting review, published 10 September 2026, describes the net effect as flat: "Modest target adjustments in select categories were offset by strengthening in others, particularly chicken and pork sausages, leading to an overall neutral effect." The programme stays voluntary throughout, as the review says in terms, since "the PRP's success depends on setting targets that drive measurable health benefits without discouraging companies from taking part." What the first two waves actually moved is the sobering part. A study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition comparing the 2019 and 2022 FoodSwitch databases of Australian packaged foods found the proportion of products meeting the sodium targets rose from 50.0 per cent to 57.5 per cent, while for saturated fat "the proportion of products meeting the targets didn't change (61.1% in 2019 versus 60.2% in 2022, p = 0.74) and nine of the 10 top manufacturers did not make any progress". Sodium moved a little. Saturated fat did not move at all.

Why Cutting a Risk Nutrient Is a Reformulation Problem

Moving the score sounds like arithmetic, but lowering a risk nutrient is rarely a clean subtraction, because sugar, salt and fat each do far more in a product than register on the nutrition panel. Sugar carries bulk, body, mouthfeel and browning as well as sweetness. Salt, or more precisely sodium, carries preservation and structure as well as the savoury hit. Fat carries aroma, creaminess and much of the texture the tongue reads as quality. Take any of them out and the product can turn thin, flat, bitter or short on the palate, even as the star rating improves. We have written in detail about each of these in our guides to salt reduction, sugar reduction and fat reduction, and the common thread is that a higher Health Star Rating is only worth having if shoppers buy the product a second time.

Where Flavour and Masking Come In

This is where flavour does its work. When sugar comes down, a blend of sweeteners can be tuned so the onset and decay feel natural, sweetness-enhancing flavours can lift perceived sweetness from less, and masking can cover the bitter or metallic notes that high-intensity sweeteners expose. When sodium comes down, umami and kokumi systems rebuild savoury depth and body while salt-enhancing flavours raise perceived saltiness from less sodium. When saturated fat comes down, modulation rebuilds the aroma release the fat used to carry and kokumi restores the impression of richness. None of this alters the nutrition figures that feed the algorithm, which is precisely the point: the rating reflects the lower sugar, salt or fat, while the flavour work keeps the eating experience close to the original. Our guide to flavour masking goes further into how off-notes are tamed.

Working With the Algorithm, Not Against It

The whole-of-product nature of the score is worth holding in view, because the algorithm can give with one hand and take with the other. Rebuilding lost sugar with a bulking system that adds energy, or lost fat with extra sodium, can push one input the wrong way while fixing another, so the net movement in stars is smaller than expected. The modifying points run the other way and are easy to under-use, since genuine protein, fibre and fruit, vegetable, nut and legume content all pull the score up, so a reformulation that adds real fibre or pulse content can earn back points that a sugar or salt cut alone could not reach. Because the rating is a single number built from several inputs measured per 100 grams, the useful question is not how much sugar can be removed but which combination of changes lifts the score while still tasting right.

A Practical Sequence for a Star-Lift Brief

A flavour-led brief to lift a rating tends to run in a set order. Start by scoring the current product in the calculator so the baseline rating and the points behind it are known, which shows whether energy, saturated fat, total sugars or sodium is doing the most damage. Set a realistic target, because the size of cut that earns a half-star or a full-star step differs by category and by which nutrient dominates. Then reformulate towards that target and test in the real product through the real process, since a recipe that scores well on paper can still fail in the mouth or on the line. The honest aim is the largest rating gain that consumers will not notice as a loss, rather than the largest cut that is technically possible.

How VKA Australia Approaches Reformulation

VKA® Australia develops and makes flavours in Southport, Queensland, and reformulating for a better nutritional profile is a large part of what we do. We treat a Health Star Rating brief the way we treat any reduction brief: work out what the sugar, salt or fat is actually doing in the product, rebuild the taste and mouthfeel with masking, modulation, umami, kokumi and sweetness enhancers, and prove it in the real matrix rather than against a neutral base. This work sits beside our approaches to salt reduction, sugar reduction and fat reduction. If you have a rating you want to move, talk to a flavourist directly and bring a sample of the current product so the score and the flavour can be rebuilt together.