"If You Send Legal Notice, I'll Get You Noticed": Influencer On Bournvita 'Win'

David versus Goliath battles rarely end with a win for the little guy and this seemed to be the trajectory when an influencer took on Mondelez - which owns Cadbury and other huge brands -  over the high sugar content in Bournvita in April. The influencer had to delete his video after getting a legal notice.

Eight months on, however, the company has reduced the added sugar content in the drink by 14.4 per cent and the influencer is counting this as a major win for nutritional education in India. 

Speaking exclusively to NDTV on Wednesday, health influencer Revant Himatsingka, aka FoodPharmer, said he has also learnt many lessons along the way, and one of them is that a legal notice is just part of the process. Emphasising that he is not afraid of such notices anymore, he said:  "If you send me a legal notice, I am going to get you publicly noticed".

'Pretty Staggering'

Mr Himatsingka said he was working in the United States and came back to India this year. He finished a nutrition degree in the US and that's when he realised how important the labels on food packaging are. He said the idea behind making his videos is to educate people on the importance of doing this, so that they can make informed choices on what they are consuming. 

"It's a big win. I know 15% may not sound like much (of a reduction), but for a multinational corporation to do this is pretty staggering. I hope this leads to a chain reaction, and other companies follow suit and try to improve their products. Lakhs of parents are now reading labels for the first time and people are eating slightly more consciously, so it is a huge win overall," he said.

Mondelez did not respond to requests for comment from NDTV.

Why Post Was Taken Down

The influencer said he had just come back to India when he made the video on Bournvita. "I left my job in the US, I was making very good money, and I came back to India and made this video. Within two weeks of coming back to India, I got this legal notice. So, of course, there was a lot of family pressure because I had just left my job and was fighting against a corporate. So I deleted the video," he explained.

"But I also got a lot of support from the public. Someone put up a hoarding in Mumbai's Marine Drive on Bournvita's sugar content... It's been a very encouraging journey overall... They only give 24 hours to respond to a legal notice and I had only that much time to decide whether to take the post down. And I am not from a legal background," he said.

Not Afraid

To a question on whether he is still afraid of legal notices and if he has a lawyer, the influencer said, "I don't have a lawyer. I am not afraid of legal notices anymore because I have understood it is part of the process. If you send me a legal notice, I am going to get you publicly noticed. I intentionally sound aggressive in my videos because I don't want brands to scare me or the public, I want brands to be scared of the public. When I say scared, I mean accountable."

'Safe And Healthy Are Different'

Mr Himatsingka said a lot of Indians are educated but not nutritionally literate; they often don't know how much protein or calories they need in a day. 

To a question on food bodies looking after products sold in the market, he said,  "A person should not need to be a nutritionist to find out whether a product is healthy. Ideally, anyone should be able to find out from the front of the package itself whether it is healthy for them. Most people blindly believe the marketing, that's why they think biscuits are healthy."

"What I am doing is not rocket science, I am just reading a label that is already on the packaging. On the front, they claim their product helps increase bone strength, but when you turn the package around (and read the label) you find a large percentage of the product is sugar. Any doctor will tell you that sugar most likely reduces immunity, but on the front of the packet they claim immunity support," he said. 

The influencer said there is a difference between what is safe to consume and healthy to consume. "I am not against junk food, I am against junk food marketing itself as healthy. A product can have nine bad qualities and one good quality, but it will put the one good quality on the front of the packaging... These companies may be legally correct but may not be ethically correct," he pointed out. 

Matter of Choice?

Mondelez has claimed that the sugar in Bournvita is well below the recommended daily sugar limit for children. Asked whether it is not for parents to decide whether they want to give children such drinks so they actually have their milk, the influencer said, "It is a choice as long as you are aware of what you are giving your child. In case of soft drinks, parents know it is harmful for their children, so they usually restrict it to once a week. But with drinks like Bournvita, they give it to their children twice a day."

Mr Himatsingka said he is not fighting against one company or many companies but simply trying to educate people. He said food can be made a part of the school curriculum and the front of the packaging can be clearer from a nutritional point of view - and not just filled with marketing messages. 

"Only 5-10% of India knows how to read English, but all food packaging is in English. Can there not be a QR code to translate the nutritional label into all other languages," he asked.