Health enthusiasts, rejoice! Say goodbye to hidden ingredients in your food – because what you see is now truly what you get.
In a significant move aimed at enhancing consumer awareness and promoting healthier dietary choices, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has approved an amendment to nutritional labelling regulations.
Now, packaged food items will prominently display key information on total sugar, salt, and saturated fat in bold and larger font sizes.
This decision, ratified during the 44th meeting of the Food Authority chaired on Saturday, marks a pivotal step towards empowering consumers to make informed decisions about their food intake.
By amplifying the visibility of these critical nutritional components, FSSAI seeks to equip consumers with the tools to better understand the nutritional value of the products they purchase.
Under the amended regulations, nutritional information will include clear percentages (%) of Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for total sugar, saturated fat, and sodium content per serving size.
“This initiative underscores FSSAI’s commitment to combatting the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and advancing public health goals nationwide,” said Apurva Chandra, chairman FSSAI.
The draft notification for these amendments will soon be open to public feedback, inviting suggestions and objections to ensure broad-based stakeholder engagement.
Alongside these efforts, FSSAI continues to issue advisories aimed at curbing misleading claims in food labelling, ensuring transparency and consumer trust in the marketplace.
Senior officials from various ministries, industry associations, consumer organisations, research institutes, and farmers’ organisations participated in the decision-making process, highlighting the collaborative approach taken to foster a healthier future for all consumers.
This is not the first time the FSSAI has tried to bring in some transparency and standardisation into food items.
Recently, it instructed e-commerce platforms to remove terms like “Health Drink”, which lack definition under the FSS Act 2006 or its associated regulations.
Additionally, all Food Business Operators (FBOs) were mandated to eliminate claims of “100% fruit juices” from labels and ads of reconstituted fruit juices.
Furthermore, the regulator has prohibited the use of terms like wheat flour/refined wheat flour by FBOs.
