New Delhi, August 25, 2024: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has given an ultimatum of four months to all food business operators (FBOs) to exhaust all pre-printed packaging materials that claim '100 per cent fruit juices' in their packaged juice products. These additional four months come as an extended deadline for the FBOs.
The food business operators were earlier asked to exhaust all existing pre-printed packaging materials before September 1, 2024, however, after consulting with all stakeholders, FSSAI decided to extend the current deadline. The new deadline for FBOs is December 31, 2024.
Earlier, in June, FSSAI had ordered FBOs to do away with claims of 100% fruit juices in their advertisements and labels of reconstituted fruit juices with an immediate effect, as the authority found the claims to be misleading.
Furthermore, the FBOs can sell products in the market manufactured by them before December 31, 2024, across all channels until the end of their shelf life.
FSSAI was quoted telling NDTV, "Such claims are misleading, particularly under conditions where the major ingredient of the fruit juice is water and the primary ingredient, for which the claim is made, is present only in limited concentrations, or when the fruit juice is reconstituted using water and fruit concentrates or pulp."
In addition to this, the FBOs were asked to adhere to the standards specified under sub-regulation 2.3.6 of the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards & Food Additives) Regulation, 2011for fruit juices.
The authority even directed the FBOs to specify the word “reconstituted” in the ingredient list, against the name of the juice that is reconstituted from the concentrate. The product has to be label as 'sweetened juice' if the added nutritive sweeteners go beyond 15 gm/kg in it.
FSSAI has been quite aggressive for the last few months in tightened the noose on various brands for misleading advertisements and labels on their products. It’s also raiding various food outlets and restaurants across the country for allegedly compromising on food safety and standards. In such an incidence, the authority has suspended a KFC unit's license for chemical oil cleaning in July.
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