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. For most of that time it has been voluntary, so manufacturers have been free to choose whether to display it. That is now changing. On 13 February 2026 the Food Ministers' Meeting, the Australian and New Zealand ministers responsible for food, asked Food Standards Australia New Zealand to prepare a proposal to make the Health Star Rating mandatory under the Food Standards Code, after voluntary uptake fell well short of the agreed targets. For product developers that turns the rating from a marketing choice into a number that may soon appear on every pack, and the practical question becomes how to lift it. 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.

From Voluntary Label to Mandatory Rule

Uptake is the reason this matters now. Food ministers set targets for how much of the food supply should carry the rating: 50 per cent of intended products by November 2023, 60 per cent by November 2024 and 70 per cent by November 2025. Each was missed. The monitoring report for 2025 found the Health Star Rating on 39 per cent of intended products in Australia and 36 per cent in New Zealand, well below the 70 per cent goal. Ministers had already asked FSANZ in July 2024 to begin the preparatory work for a possible mandate, and in February 2026 they acted, agreeing by majority to ask FSANZ to draft a proposal that would write the Health Star Rating into the Food Standards Code. FSANZ has said that work will run through two rounds of public consultation and is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

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.