The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued a draft amendment to the Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011. The draft regulations have been published to invite objections and suggestions from stakeholders before finalisation. Stakeholders may submit objections or suggestions within sixty days from the date on which copies of the Gazette containing this notification are made available to the public. The comments are to be submitted to the Chief Executive Officer, FSSAI.

The draft amendment proposes revisions across multiple provisions of the Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, mainly to update references relating to packaging and labelling requirements.

Across several regulations including Regulations 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 2.11 and 2.14, the following substitution is proposed:

“Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011” shall be substituted with “Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations, 2018 and Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020.”

Further amendments include replacement of the term “labelling” with “labelling and packaging” in several clauses. In addition, certain sub-clauses under sub-regulations 2.1.14 and 2.1.15 are proposed to be omitted.

The draft amendments also update labelling declaration requirements for certain food products such as products containing sweeteners, coffee and chicory mixtures, tea products and other specified food categories to align them with the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations, 2018 and the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020.