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New Food Labelling Regulations Related to Packaged Food Products

On August 23, 2006, India’s government passed the Food Safety and Standard Act or the FSS Act. The FSSAI, i.e., Food Safety and Standard Authority of India, was entrenched under this act. This act is meant to cover or carry out operations related to setting the standard of food articles. This crucial step changed the businesses way involved in food articles in India. The FSSAI standards are based on scientific research. They help regulate the storage, manufacture, sale, import-export, distribution and making all types of other food articles available to the general population.

The FSSAI published new food labelling regulations related to packaged food products, based on the recommendations of the expert group. 

What it is about?

The following provisions are described in the scientific document: 

• Chapter 1: – Prescribes pre-packaged foods labelling requirements and displays essential information on-premises where food is processed, served, manufactured, and stored. Several definitions have been listed under the context otherwise requires.
• Chapter 2: – covers the general requirement of labelling pre-packaged foods such as food name, list of ingredients, calculation of nutrients, and nutritional information. Declaration of name and complete address, lot/code/batch identification, Date marking, a declaration regarding food additives, retail sale price, FSSAI logo, and license no., Net quantity and consumer care details. Etc.
• Chapter 3: – contains a display of information in the food service establishment of the Regulation.
• Chapter 4: – has the non-retail container labelling requirements.
• Chapter 5:- Of Regulation indicates the labelling of packaged food additives for retail sale. Mandatory labelling declaration for various food products has been set out in schedule 2.

When is it going to be implemented?

India’s Food safety standards Authority published a “Food Safety and Standards (labelling and display), Regulation 2020 gazette notification on December 14. 2020. The Regulation shall come into force from the date of their disclosure in the Official Gazette. All the Regulation provisions should comply with all the Food Business Operator after one year from their disclosure date except chapter-3 of this Regulation. Food Business Operator shall comply with this by January 1, 2022.

What are the concerns related to this?

Industry concerns: –

• There has been a concern by the food industry giants regarding the bigger size fonts to be used in the principal display panels.
• The industrial bodies have complained that it is not feasible for them to use expiration date similar to that of the pharmaceutical industry. They would like to stick to the ‘Best before date.’ for this purpose.
• The guidelines dictate the menu cards calorific value to the cafe chains and restaurants with more than ten outlets.
• Further, the guidelines mention that all the E-platform food and beverage sales should communicate the essential requirement to the consumers before the deal, which includes (batch date, best before date, expiry date, and packaging date).

 

Source: 

1. https://fssaifoodlicense.in/food-safety-and-standards-act/
2. https://resources.selerant.com/food-regulatory-news/fssai-publishes-food-safety-and-standards-labelling-and-display-regulations-2020
3. https://packagingsouthasia.com/she-safety-health-and-environment/regulation-compliances/fssai-reworks-norms/

 

The recent outbreak of COVID has changed people’s behaviour in many ways, which has even affected the growth of the various market in the right way; being the largest exporter, consumer, and producer of spices, India accounts for half of the global trading in this sector.

Industries such as pharmaceuticals, indigenous alternative medicine, cosmetics, resin, and natural colour use spices in a considerable amount. Any interference in the domestic and global supply chain throws an adverse impact on the supply and production of vital industries and workers involved in spices’ processing and output.

Growth of Immune Boosting Spices during the Pandemic:

Customers across the globe are showing a massive interest in building their immunity and safeguarding their health. India, known as the king of spices, has a vast history of trading with China and Rome’s ancient civilization. The people in large amount has started using the zest with anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties like never to prevent the infection. Some spices double in rate, and many of the herbs have gone out of stock. Since the virus outbreak, there is an increase in the sale of black pepper, garlic, dry ginger, and turmeric.

Export Trend Moves Up:

The observation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has shown that there is increasing use of spice in the world after the outbreak of a pandemic, which gave a massive rise in exports of Indian spices, by 23 % in dollar terms and 34% in rupee terms in June this year 2020, report by ASSOCHAM. It was found that chilies were the most exported zest from India in the fiscal year, 2020. With an anticipated volume of over 484 thousand metric tonnes. Cumin followed while turmeric ranked third.

Since May 2020, there is a surge in export and the resumption of cardamom e-auction, which has facilitated better price realization by the cardamom growers. The growing trend in exports in the auction prices rose by Rs 600, Touching an average of Rs 1615 per Kg. Around 100 tonnes of cardamom valued at Rs 25 crore have been exported to Saudi since May, the largest customer of Indian cardamom.

Some of the Immune Boosting Spices:

For building immunity, it is necessary to have a balanced diet with the inclination towards immunity boosters.

Garlic:

The bioactive ingredient of garlic, i.e., allicin, is released when the garlic is cut or chopped into pieces. Research has shown that allicin helps in reducing the common cold by 63%. Garlic is used as traditional medicine by major civilizations such as Egyptians, Chinese, and Babylonians since ancient times.

Turmeric:

The bioactive agent of turmeric, i.e., curcumin, acts as an anti-inflammatory agent. AYUSH recommends that turmeric powder, basil, and grated ginger are the best immune boosters when consumed daily.

Ginger:

The bioactive compound of ginger, i.e., Gingerol, traditional medicine, is extensively used to cure asthma, coughs and colds, and gastrointestinal complaints. It can be taken either in juice or in tea, or in the form of a dried powder.

Black Pepper:

Pepper acts as a remarkable natural remedy for nasal congestion and sinuses, providing immediate relief. It has been found by research that including black pepper, powdered, or crushed daily, can strengthen the body’s defence, and can improve overall health.

 

Source:-

1. www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2020/aug/12/covid-19-spice-it-up-urge-experts-to-boost-immunity
2. www.fnbnews.com/Ingredients-and-Flavours/growth-of-immune-boosting-spices-during-the-pandemic

In providing a promising new route in engaging and delivering successful nutrition intervention in young adults and adolescents, digital technologies such as social media, gamification, health tracking, education, social support and others play a vital role.

Increasing use of social media and smartphones by these age groups is making technology-based interventions specifically pertinent to help this age group and teach positive habits that can be carried further into adult life.

According to a recent review, a technology-based intervention can also help treat mental health, diet modification, physical inactivity and substance abuse.  Robotics and Artificial intelligence also help researchers learn more about the connections between technology and humans.

Emerging Technologies in R&D as a Nutritional Intervention: 

Microarray and nanotechnology, these new emerging technologies can advance the science of nutrition by developing, discovering, and delivering several intervention strategies to improve health and reduce the complication and risk of various diseases.

Food grade nanotechnology and microarray are being increasingly used to improve efficient encapsulation, increasing bioavailability and digestibility.

Supply Chain (Food Blockchain Revolution): 

Blockchain technology is becoming a new level of sharing information and transparency for the farmers to processors to packer to distributor to packaged goods maker to retailer to foodservice operator to the exporter to the consumer, blockchain technology is taking off as a novel for the agri-food business to disclose and record transactions in an open virtual space across the entire chain.

AI Revolutionizing Food Processing and Healthcare Business:

AI is impacting the food processing industry efficiently; it helps the industry both directly and indirectly. It allows farmers with weather predictions, which indirectly produces high-quality raw materials for food processing companies. It instantly soothes the food processing business by food safety compliance, maintaining cleanliness, developing products, and sorting packages and products. 

AI technology even plays a vital role in healthcare by forecasting potential high-risk conditions and improving diagnostic accuracy. With enhanced AI capabilities, robotics equipped with AI robust seems to play a substantial role as surgical assistants, delivery, and transportation aids.

Consumer Awareness through Apps: 

• Lesson From m-Nutrition:
  m-Nutrition is a global mobile-based advisory service, promotes behavioural change around farming practices and nutrition to boost adults and children’s nutritional health in low-cost countries. This m-Nutrition is a well-designed service that provides individually practical, tailored, and context-particular advice lacking in other information sources.

• E-Learning to Empower Front-Line Nutrition Workers in India:
  The department of child and women development and FaNS Project of Madhya Pradesh, India, implemented an interactive eLearning platform in February 2019 to provide counselling skills to 97 135 front line supervisors and workers, high-quality, standardized, and systematic training to boost nutrition knowledge. To analyse this digital tool’s effects on front line workers’ capacity-building, a study was conducted in December 2019, which showed that 25,000 have embarked on 40 hours training course and 7000 have completed it. The training benefited ninety-nine percent of participants, and they claimed that the training enhanced their nutrition knowledge and counselling skills. The practice was said to be systematic, comprehensive, and suited to participants’ roles and responsibilities.

 

The Nutraceutical industry is a booming field in India as the consumers are increasingly gaining exposure to various Dietary supplements and fortified products. Despite increasing awareness, nutrition remains an incompletely understood concept in India and a large portion of the population suffers from Malnutrition in one or the other form. As Nutraceuticals are presumed to be safe and are marketed without prescription in India, it is crucial to impose stringent guidelines and regulations over the active ingredients of nutraceuticals, identity, purity and bioavailability for the rationale use of nutraceuticals. Nutrivigilance is necessary to incorporate monitoring schemes to identify the adverse effects caused by nutraceuticals for the consumer safety.

Reporting by Healthcare providers:
Healthcare providers play a vital role as they are actively connected with patients and consumers. They are also aware of the health profile, history and current medication regimen of their patients. They can thus be tapped as influencers to educate the consumers about ensuring the right Nutrition.

Educating the consumer:
Providing Nutrivigilance guidance, awareness and updates as leaflets to consumers can improve awareness among them. Once again, healthcare providers can be instrumental in explaining potential side effects or inappropriate use and potentially risky combination of Nutraceuticals with other medicines.

Combating adverse effects of Nutraceuticals:

• Avoiding prolonged use of Nutraceuticals without guidance of healthcare professionals
• Not taking Nutraceuticals to treat self-diagnosed conditions
• Not consuming Nutraceuticals with, or instead of Prescription medications without
• consulting a Healthcare professional
• Consulting healthcare professionals about the supplements taken before a surgical procedure
• Abstaining use of Nutraceuticals sold through improper and untrustworthy channels
• Being cognizant of labels and information provided on Nutraceutical products

Regulatory perspective:
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education act as well as the Food Safety and Standards act have issued rules and regulations regarding registration and licensing of Nutraceuticals in India.
As per norms, the manufacturer:

• Is accountable for product analysis, development, authentication and safety of Nutraceuticals
• it makes and supplies
• Must not print any misleading information on the labels
• Must not claim that the product will diagnose, treat or prevent any disease
• Must guarantee purity, composition and identity of their Nutraceuticals

Path Ahead:
The domestic Nutraceutical market is currently experiencing growth. Existing as well as new players are providing nutraceuticals and dietary supplements both locally as well as globally.
With this background, the standardization of these products is one of the valiant challenges for regulators and the industry stakeholders. The need, scope and importance of Nutrivigilance have to be accepted with paramount importance.

 

There is no doubt that the world is in a very distinctive and perturb state right now. Health is at the top of everyone’s mind, remarkably immune health because of the growing covid-19 pandemic. The immune system supports your body to fight against disease and protect it from getting ill in the first place.

While things like season changing and pandemic may warn us of immune health, it is really of great importance all year long.

The excellent news is that even though some things are out of your control, there is still much that you can control, precisely what supplement you take, what you eat, and how you treat your body.

With no scientific evidence-based treatment for COVID-19 yet and a vaccine still in the Clinical trial stage, the keyword has been ‘Nutraceuticals’ and ‘Immune boosters’ during the past eight to nine months.

Nutraceuticals & Functional Food Use- A Focus on Self- Protection:

Just before the pandemic, many of us did not know about what the Nutraceuticals is?

Coronavirus has done an excellent job of opening consumers’ eyes to the power of food and its function. Some findings are consistent with google and taste wise research, which demonstrates a rising trend for vitamin C, D, zinc, elderberries, rosemary, melatonin, collagen, mushroom, and Nutraceuticals. This finding is of note also because of the notable increase in the prevalence of internet searches for ‘food’ and ‘Immune system,’ which rose 670% globally in the first two weeks of March’20. In India, according to the google trend data the index search for immunity, gut health and nutraceuticals rose by 100%. 

This urgent requirement for a solution is reflected on the individual level by an unprecedented rise in consumer sales of supplementary nutrients, nutraceutical products, Ayurvedic concoctions, and functional products, which were considered effective against influenza, SARS virus, which has been on the front burner during this pandemic as well. However, consumers are seeking to use any functional food that is used to self-medicating their moods.

At a particular time in the past, traditional Indian homemade food was healthy and owned unbelievable health benefits. Indian food played a vital role in inflammation, immunity, brain function and people were healthy. The scene across the globe has changed, and India has also become a part of it. The nutraceutical market is flourishing predominantly in the United States, India, and European countries. When it comes to health and immunity, the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is ‘Nutraceuticals & Immune boosters’. It will continue as people have shifted towards prevention is better than cure.

The breakthrough in grasping the connection between health and nutrition gave an impulsion to the concept of nutraceuticals as a feasible and definitive perspective to meliorate health and lessen the peril analogous with certain diseases.

Increasing health awareness, drift in population disease demographics, where younger people are affected, lifestyle alterations, escalated purchasers’ opulence, and high life expectancy is responsible for increasing the market for nutraceuticals in India.