Ensure pre-mixes not sold as health or energy drinks: FSSAI to e-commerce firms
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has asked all e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) to ensure appropriate categorization of food products being sold on their websites.
The country’s apex food safety regulator has asked websites selling food products to ensure that drinks or pre-mixes such as Bournvita, Complan and Horlicks are not available under the ‘health drink’ or ‘energy drink’ category.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said this will ensure that people are not misled.
This will be applicable to all websites and apps that sell food products such as food delivery applications like Swiggy or Zomato, grocery delivery apps such as Blinkit or Zepto, as well as general e-commerce websites such as Amazon.
“This corrective action aims to enhance clarity and transparency regarding the nature and functional properties of the products, ensuring that consumers can make well-informed choices without encountering misleading information,” FSSAI said in a statement.
FSSAI said these are licensed as proprietary foods as there is no category called health drinks under the act that governs food products in the country.
“The FSSAI has noted instances of food products licensed under ‘Proprietary Food’ with the nearest category – Dairy Based Beverage Mix or Cereal Based Beverage Mix or Malt Based Beverage – being sold on e-commerce websites under the category ‘Health Drink’, ‘Energy Drink’ etc,” the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday.
FSSAI has clarified that the term ‘health drink’ is not defined or standardized anywhere under the FSS Act 2006 or rules/regulations made thereunder. Therefore, FSSAI has advised all e-commerce FBOs to promptly rectify this misclassification by removing or de-linking such drinks or beverages from the category of ‘Health Drinks / Energy Drinks’ on their websites and place such products in the appropriate category as provided under the extant law.
Proprietary Foods are items of food that are not standardized in Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulations and Food Safety and Standards (Health Supplements, Nutraceuticals, Food for Special Dietary Use, Food for Special Medical Purpose, Functional Food, and Novel Food) Regulations but use standardised ingredients, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.
The term – ‘Energy’ Drinks – is permitted to be used only on the products licensed under Food Category System (FCS) 14.1.4.1 and 14.1.4.2 (Carbonated and Non-carbonated water based flavoured drinks), standardized under sub-regulation 2.10.6 (2) of Food Product Standards and Food Additives Regulations 2011 (Caffeinated Beverage).
This corrective action aims to enhance clarity and transparency regarding the nature and functional properties of the products, ensuring that consumers can make well-informed choices without encountering misleading information.