For twelve years the Health Star Rating has been the label brands could choose to ignore. That is now changing. On 13 February 2026, Australia's Food Ministers agreed to request Food Standards Australia New Zealand prepare a proposal to mandate the Health Star Rating system in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. Nothing is compulsory yet, but the direction of travel is set, and it has real consequences for how food and beverage packs are laid out.
What was decided, and what was not
The decision instructs FSANZ to begin work, not to switch the system on. FSANZ has said the work is expected to take twelve to eighteen months and will include opportunities for public comment. Its assessment then goes to the FSANZ Board, and if that includes a draft standard for a mandatory system, it returns to Food Ministers for a final decision.
In the meantime the position is unchanged. The Health Star Rating remains voluntary, and businesses already carrying it are encouraged to continue applying it under current requirements. If a mandate does proceed, FSANZ has confirmed a transition period will be put in place, and it will consult on those transitional arrangements as part of the proposal.
Why ministers moved
The system was introduced in 2014 as a voluntary front-of-pack label, scoring packaged food and drink from half a star to five stars based on overall nutritional profile. In 2020 ministers set a voluntary uptake target of 70 per cent of applicable products. Uptake did not get close. By the end of 2025, reported figures put display at 39 per cent of applicable products in Australia and 36 per cent in New Zealand.
That gap is the whole story. A voluntary label that is applied selectively tends to appear on products that score well and quietly disappear from those that do not, which erodes its usefulness as a comparison tool. Mandating it removes the choice, and with it the strategic silence.
What a mandate would mean at the artwork stage
Designers who have worked on Health Star Rating artwork already know the practical issue: the graphic is not small, and it wants the front of pack. The stars element must be used wherever the system is applied, and it is deliberately designed to sit more prominently than the accompanying energy and nutrient icons. Where those nutrient icons are used, their order is meant to follow the Nutrition Information Panel, reading left to right: energy, then the prescribed nutrients, then any optional nutrient.
If the label becomes compulsory across a portfolio rather than optional on selected lines, three things follow.
- Front-of-pack real estate gets tighter across every SKU at once. Brands that have been designing around the label on some products and not others lose that flexibility, and small formats feel it hardest.
- Hierarchy has to be rethought, not patched. Dropping a rating graphic into a layout designed without one usually costs the brand mark or the product descriptor. Designing the space in from the start costs less than retrofitting it later.
- Artwork changes arrive in a wave. A transition period applied across a whole category means a large number of packs re-plated in a compressed window, with the usual pressure on print scheduling and existing stock.
The reformulation question
The less obvious effect sits upstream of design. Once a rating is compulsory and comparable on shelf, the number itself becomes a commercial input rather than a marketing option. Some brands will look at their score and change the recipe. That is arguably the point of the policy, but it matters for packaging teams because reformulation usually triggers a Nutrition Information Panel change, sometimes an ingredient list change, and often a claim review at the same time. Sequencing those together is cheaper than doing them in three separate artwork rounds.
What to do now
There is no need to rush a redesign for a rule that does not exist yet. There is a good case for planning as though it will.
- Run the calculation on your range, even if you do not display it. Knowing your ratings now tells you which products would be exposed by a mandate and which would benefit from displaying the label voluntarily today.
- Design new packs with space reserved for the graphic. Any pack going to artwork in the next twelve months is likely to still be on shelf when the question is settled.
- Work from the current source documents. The Health Star Rating Implementation Guide, previously called the Calculator and Style Guide, is the authority on how the graphic is calculated, sized and placed. Do not copy a rating graphic from an old file or a competitor pack.
- Watch for the consultation rounds. FSANZ has flagged public comment as part of the process, which is the point at which industry can raise practical concerns about transition timing and small formats.
A measured view
Mandating the Health Star Rating is not settled, and the timeline is measured in years rather than months. But front-of-pack space in Australia has been getting more crowded for a decade, between country of origin labelling, allergen information, recycling labels and now this. The brands that handle it well are the ones that treat regulated elements as part of the design system rather than as intrusions added at the end. For the wider picture on what else is changing on Australian packs, see our overview of Australia's packaging rules and what brands need to know.
General information to help you plan, not legal or professional advice. Labelling requirements change, so always confirm the current position with FSANZ, the Health Star Rating system or your designer before you print.