Health Star Rating (HSRAC v9)
Rate a packaged product from 0.5 to 5 stars against others in its own category. The Health Star Rating is the front-of-pack system used across Australia and New Zealand, and here it runs on our full food catalogue: the Canadian Nutrient File and the West African Food Composition Table, with more to come. It scores one product at a time, which is what makes it useful at the shelf. This yogurt or that one. This cereal or that one.
Understanding Health Star Ratings
The Health Star Rating runs from 0.5 to 5 stars and reflects a product's nutritional profile compared with others in the same category.
Excellent
Among the best in its category.
Good
A strong choice in its category.
Average
Middle of the pack for its category.
Below average
Weaker than most in its category.
Poor
Among the lowest in its category.
Four ways to score a product
Pick the tool that fits what you have in front of you: a packaged label, a food from our catalogue, two products to compare, or the full picture across every lens.
Scan a packaged product
Take one to three photos of a label: the Nutrition Facts panel, the ingredient list, and the net weight. The app reads the panel, you confirm what it found, and the product is scored in its own category. This is the simplest way to score something straight off the shelf.
- From photo to star rating
- Upload front, back, and side
- You confirm before anything is scored
- Best for a single packaged product
Calculate HSR
Pick foods and serving sizes from our catalogue. Score one food on its own, or build a list and get an overall rating alongside a star rating for each item.
- Full score breakdown
- Nutrient-by-nutrient analysis
- A rating for each item in a list
- Researcher and policy views
Compare products
Line up similar products side by side and rank them by stars. This is what HSR does best: which yogurt, which cereal, which loaf of bread.
- Compare within a category
- Ranked by star rating
- Key nutrients side by side
- Each product's strengths and weaknesses
All scores
See the star rating next to all five other measures for the same foods: Food Compass, healthy eating, health impact, environment, and eating style, in one clear summary.
- All six lenses at once
- A plain-language summary
- Jump straight to any calculator
Why use Health Star Ratings?
HSR is built for one job and does it well: comparing similar packaged products on the same evidence base.
HSRAC v9 algorithm
Runs the current Australian and New Zealand Health Star Rating algorithm (Implementation Guide v9, December 2025). It matches versions 6 through 8 and differs from the pre-2020 versions.
Within-category comparison
Every food is scored against the thresholds for its own group. HSRAC v9 has six: non-dairy beverages, dairy beverages, foods, dairy foods, fats and oils, and cheese. You compare yogurts to yogurts, not yogurts to oils.
Per-product, not per-day
A 5-star product is not a healthy diet. For full-day diet quality, use healthy eating or Food Compass. For population-level health impact, use health impact scores.
Multi-database catalogue
The catalogue holds 6,719 foods today: 5,691 from the Canadian Nutrient File and 1,028 West African foods from FAO/INFOODS WAFCT 2019. Each source keeps its own notes, so differences in how foods were measured stay visible, and new databases can be added the same way.
How Health Star Rating works
HSR weighs the nutrients that affect health and turns them into a single star rating from 0.5 to 5.
Risk nutrients
Energy, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium add risk points. The more a product has, the more risk points it carries.
Beneficial nutrients
Protein, fibre, and fruit, vegetable, nut, and legume content add beneficial points that work in the product's favour.
Final calculation
The final score is the risk points minus the beneficial points. A lower final score means a healthier profile, which earns more stars. Each food category has its own table that converts the final score into a star rating.
Sample calculation — general foods
Each category has its own conversion table. The same final score yields different stars for beverages, foods, dairy products, fats and oils, and cheese.
Three ways to read every result
Every result can be read three ways. The numbers never change; the explanation does. Individuals get a plain-language read with no jargon. Researchers get the full HSRAC v9 methodology, including the category-determination trail and notes on how fruit, vegetable, nut, and legume content was estimated. Policy makers get population-level framing for procurement and labelling.
Primary references
- HSRAC, Health Star Rating System Implementation Guide v9 (Dec 2025).
- Shahid M. et al. (2020). The Australian Health Star Rating System: applicability for nutrient profiling. Nutrients 12, 1791.
- HSR v9 is functionally equivalent to versions 6 through 8 and differs from pre-2020 versions.
Ready to rate a product?
Score what's in your hand, or compare two products side by side.