diff --git a/plugin-server/src/kafka/batch-consumer.ts b/plugin-server/src/kafka/batch-consumer.ts
index 03c9e2de6db37..8ef61ee4ff4f9 100644
--- a/plugin-server/src/kafka/batch-consumer.ts
+++ b/plugin-server/src/kafka/batch-consumer.ts
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ export const startBatchConsumer = async ({
     instrumentConsumerMetrics(consumer, groupId, cooperativeRebalance)
 
     let isShuttingDown = false
-    let lastLoopTime = Date.now()
+    let lastConsumeTime = 0
 
     // Before subscribing, we need to ensure that the topic exists. We don't
     // currently have a way to manage topic creation elsewhere (we handle this
@@ -148,11 +148,11 @@ export const startBatchConsumer = async ({
     consumer.subscribe([topic])
 
     const startConsuming = async () => {
-        // Start consuming in a loop, fetching a batch of a max of 500 messages then
-        // processing these with eachMessage, and finally calling
+        // Start consuming in a loop, fetching a batch of a max of `fetchBatchSize`
+        // messages then processing these with eachMessage, and finally calling
         // consumer.offsetsStore. This will not actually commit offsets on the
         // brokers, but rather just store the offsets locally such that when commit
-        // is called, either manually of via auto-commit, these are the values that
+        // is called, either manually or via auto-commit, these are the values that
         // will be used.
         //
         // Note that we rely on librdkafka handling retries for any Kafka
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ export const startBatchConsumer = async ({
         const statusLogInterval = setInterval(() => {
             status.info('🔁', 'main_loop', {
                 messagesPerSecond: messagesProcessed / (statusLogMilliseconds / 1000),
-                lastLoopTime: new Date(lastLoopTime).toISOString(),
+                lastConsumeTime: new Date(lastConsumeTime).toISOString(),
             })
 
             messagesProcessed = 0
@@ -175,10 +175,15 @@ export const startBatchConsumer = async ({
 
         try {
             while (!isShuttingDown) {
-                lastLoopTime = Date.now()
-
                 status.debug('🔁', 'main_loop_consuming')
                 const messages = await consumeMessages(consumer, fetchBatchSize)
+
+                // It's important that we only set the `lastConsumeTime` after a successful consume
+                // call. Even if we received 0 messages, a successful call means we are actually
+                // subscribed and didn't receive, for example, an error about an inconsistent group
+                // protocol. If we never manage to consume, we don't want our health checks to pass.
+                lastConsumeTime = Date.now()
+
                 if (!messages) {
                     status.debug('🔁', 'main_loop_empty_batch', { cause: 'undefined' })
                     continue
@@ -230,7 +235,7 @@ export const startBatchConsumer = async ({
     const isHealthy = () => {
         // We define health as the last consumer loop having run in the last
         // minute. This might not be bullet-proof, let's see.
-        return Date.now() - lastLoopTime < 60000
+        return Date.now() - lastConsumeTime < 60000
     }
 
     const stop = async () => {