India’s Safety and Standards Body Proposes Mandatory Labelling of Blended Oils...

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed the mandatory labelling of blended edible vegetable oils to indicate the exact percentage of the blend on the front of the pack, NutraIngredients-Asia reported on July 25.  This labelling will accompany other recently-proposed amendments to the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011, regarding manufactured and processed food.  This move is intended to better enable consumer to make a more informed choice when purchasing manufactured or processed food products.

In the draft regulations, the FSSAI stated,  “Every package containing an admixture of edible oils shall carry the following label declaration immediately below its brand name, namely: Blended Edible Vegetable Oil.”  The name and nature of each edible vegetable oil in its raw or refined form would also have to be clearly listed, together with its percentage by weight.  

Following the Central Government’s approval of the draft regulations, notice was given in the The Gazette of India with the amendments made public and feedback and comments taken into consideration for a period of thirty days, which recently came to an end.  Food regulator has also recently stated that it plans to finalize food labelling and display regulations for packaged food products including proposed traffic light labelling for high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) foods within the next few months.