The Health Star Rating system is corrupted and unhelpful.

From https://theconversation.com/parents-find-health-star-ratings-confusing-and-unhelpful-we-need-a-better-food-labelling-system-264881

The Health Star Rating’s own consumer research found 74% of consumers do not understand that the rating cannot be used to compare dissimilar products.

There's no reason it shouldn't be comparable across categories, either. I think originally it was designed so to be, and then the lobbyists got to it. People's intake of each category isn't some fixed ratio, and how are they supposed to get a signal to cut down on one category if they can't compare products across categories?

Even if people are aware that products can only be compared within categories, do we expect everyone to know what those categories are and which one any particular product fits into? The HSR panel doesn't contain any category information!

From https://theconversation.com/australias-food-labelling-system-isnt-working-heres-how-we-can-fix-it-275673

So, is there an alternative?

Yes – warning labels.

Using simple statements or symbols, warning labels are designed to inform consumers if a food product is high in fat, sugar or salt. In future, they may also indicate whether a product is an ultra-processed food.

...

A global study published in late 2025 suggests warning labels are the most effective way to reduce the consumption of ultra-processed foods. This is compared to other ranking-style labelling schemes such as Health Star Ratings.

Seems like a pretty simple and reasonable approach to me. Also, it seems like it can be applied comparably across all categories of packaged food.

I can see people arguing that an incremental scale like the HSR allows for companies to compete on small differences (unlike a simple binary 'high in sugar' warning label) and that little differences would help over time. I'm pretty sceptical of that, though, and I think encouraging people to eat fewer chocolate biscuits is likely more important than slightly reducing the amount of sugar in the biscuits. (If anyone's seen good research on the topic, let me know!)

It's not like the 'warning label' approach stops people from making a comparison on the details anyway. If you see a 'high in sugar' label on something it might prompt you to check the nutrition panel to see just how much sugar is in that biscuit, and its competitors.