FSSAI Directives to E-commerce Food Business Operators | 05 Apr 2024

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has directed e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) to correctly categorise food products on their websites.

The Authority observed cases where licensed "proprietary foods," such as dairy-based, cereal-based, and malt-based beverage mixes, were incorrectly labelled and sold on e-commerce platforms as health or energy drinks.
- The food products are considered proprietary food if there are no existence of standards for them in FSSAI regulations.
FSSAI clarified that "Health Drink" is not defined or standardised anywhere under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and advised FBOs to rectify this misclassification by placing such products in the appropriate category as per the law.
- Also, FSSAI further said that the term ‘energy drinks’ is permitted to be used only for products which have been licensed under that specific food category system.