The Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) has already specified the nutritional information and other details that are required to be published on a packaged food product. Now, as per a recent proposal, the presentation of few details have changed. Let us deliberate upon them:
- Following are few basic particulars that have to be published:
- Names of all ingredients in descending order by weight or volume under a separate title “Ingredients”. For example- if in a fruit juice bottle, pulp is used 46% and sugar 23% then first name should be pulp and then sugar.
- The names of ingredients should be strictly as per law. For example- for cocoa bean, coconib, cocomass, cocoa powder & cocoa press cakes, – the word Cocoa solids should be mentioned.
- Energy value in kcal;, amount of proteins and fats in gram or ml; amount of any other nutrient.
- All numerical information shall be given in metric units.
- Allergy reactions that it may cause and the ingredients that may cause it.
- Separate dots in green or brown color for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food respectively.
- Details of added flavor, if any.
- Date of manufacturing, expiry and details of manufacturer as well as marketer.
Now, let us come to the amendment part. FSSAI may soon make it mandatory to display information about Total Sugar, Salt and Saturated Fat in bold letters and increased font size. All Food Business Operators are already informed to exhaust their existing packages before 01st September, 2024. In addition to this, because it has also ordered all online grocery websites to remove the category “Health Drink” which is currently used for all kind of beverages. Also, this 100% fruit juice label be removed and instead of that, the word “reconstituted” be mentioned. More so, most importantly, the companies will now have to mention Whole Wheat Flour (for Atta) and Refined Wheat Flour (for Maida).
Not to mention, this is proposed in order to make the information prominently available to consumers for their health and safety purposes.
