A piece of Important news for Fruitarians or Vegans, and Vegan Product Businesses in India. The FSSAI has notified new Food Safety Standards and formulated a new safety code for Vegan food. The draft notification was issued on September 6, 2021. Thus, this article discusses the new notification by FSSAI on Vegan Food Products in detail.
FSSAI notified new Food Safety Standards via Draft Notification.
FSSAI notified new Food Safety Standards for Vegan Food Products. The notification highlights the new regulations. These regulations can be called the Food Safety and Standards (Vegan Foods) Regulations, 2021.
It is also open to objections and suggestions. However, objections and suggestions might come into action after the expiry of a period of 60 days from the date on which copies of the Official Gazette in which this notification is published are made available to the public.
The FSSAI clearly mentions the Regulations, Definitions, Vegan Food Compliance, Display, and labeling requirements. These all are as follows.
Definition of Vegan Food by FSSAI.
As per FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) “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.
General Requirements to declare food or a Dish as Vegan.
- 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.
- 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 genes for manufacturing the ingredients or products.
- 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.
- All vegan foods/ingredients shall comply with the relevant provisions, as applicable under the Act, Rules, and regulations.
Legal Compliances FSSAI notified new Food Safety Standards for Vegan Food products.
- 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 a concerned Food Safety Officer or Designated Officer. In other words, it is mandatory to have FSSAI Registration to operate a Vegan Food Business.
- The Food Authority may specify guidelines for endorsement of vegan logo and annual market surveillance for such products. The concerning registration or licensing authority shall carry out surveillance of the registered establishment at least once in a year.
Labelling and Display Essentials for Vegan Products.
The FSSAI has notified new food safety standards along with Labelling and Display Requirements for Vegan Products. These Labelling and Display Requirements are as follows.
- 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.
- 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.
- Lastly, Every package of vegan foods, after the endorsement as specified in clause 4 of these regulations, shall carry the logo.
Moreover, you require any kind of guidance related to the FSSAI Registration, please feel free to contact our business advisors at 8881-069-069.
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