Draft notification of Vegan Foods for inviting comments by FSSAI
Draft Regulations
Short Title and Commencement – (1) These regulations may be called the Food Safety and Standards (Vegan Foods) Regulations, 2021.Definitions- (1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires: (a) ―Vegan Food means those foods or food ingredients that have not made use of any ingredients, additives and processing aids of animal origin including milk and milk products, fish, poultry and meat, egg or egg products, honey or honey bee products, materials of insect origin like silk, dyes, chitin/chitosan etc or ingredients that are clarified using animal sourced products e.g., bone char used in sugar bleaching, isinglass in clarifying beer etc.
(2) All the other words and expressions used herein and not defined but defined in the Act, or rules or regulations made thereunder shall have the meanings assigned to the same in the Act, rules or regulations respectively.
General Requirements-
(1) No person shall manufacture, pack, sell, offer for sale, market or otherwise distribute or import any food as vegan food unless they comply with the requirements laid down under these regulations.(2)The food products or ingredients to be called VEGAN, shall not have involved animal testing for evaluating the safety of the final product/ingredient; and, shall not contain any animal derived GMOs or products prepared using animal derived gene for manufacturing the ingredients or products.
(3) Traceability shall be established up to the manufacturer level and shall include any other requirements prescribed by the Food Authority to maintain the vegan integrity of the foods or food ingredients or products thereof from time to time.
(4) All vegan foods/ingredients shall comply with the relevant provisions, as applicable under the Act, Rules and regulations.
- Vegan food compliance (1) The Food Business Operator shall submit an application with all necessary details related to plant/machinery/premises to the Authority. Inspection and verification of the premises shall be done by concerned Food Safety Officer or Designated Officer. (2) Verification of the final product for compliance shall also be done by use of analytical tools (molecular/chemical/combination of both) available to ascertain absence of animal origin for endorsement of the vegan logo in the license. (3) The Food Authority may specify guidelines for endorsement of vegan logo and annual market surveillance for such products. The concerned registration or licensing authority shall carry out surveillance of the registered establishment at least once in a year.
- Labelling and display requirements- (1) All vegan foods shall comply with the packaging and labelling requirements specified under the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020 in addition to the labelling requirements specified above. (2) The seller of vegan food either exclusively or as part of retail merchandise shall store and display such food in a manner distinguishable from non-vegan food. (3) Every package of vegan foods, after the endorsement as specified in clause 4 of these regulations, shall carry the logo as specified below:
