The Food Standard and Safety Authority said advertisers cannot make claim unless the company does study and generate adequately valid scientific data
Hyderabad: In a bid to restrict deceptive advertisements, particularly with regards to food articles such as weight-loss or weight-gain drinks, the Food Standards and Safety Authority of India (FSSAI) is going to make it mandatory for the manufacturers to display scientific evidence on the package, reports PTI.
According to B Sesikeran, director at National Institute of Nutrition and chairman of Scientific panel on Food Labelling said the panel recommendations will be notified in a month and after that it will seek public opinion before amending the existing Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011.
"New food labelling regulation will have a lot of things such as if a health drink claims that children will grow taller with the drink then they will have produce evidence to prove their claim," Mr Sesikeran told reporters on the sidelines of 'Technology as Driver of Growth: Ensuring Farm Productivity' a panel discussion organised by IndoAsiancommodities.com.
"We are going to regulate advertisements also. They cannot make claim unless the company does study and generate adequately valid scientific data. Otherwise, claims have to be removed for the advertisement," he added.
He said there is also a proposal to display nutritional values on the hotel menu cards.Though it is not mandatory for the hotels initially it may become a rule after three years, Mr Sesikeran explained.
"Particularly salt, sugar, iron and fat values should be displayed against each food item the hotel offers. Initially, we will ask them to do it voluntarily," he said.
Meanwhile, the NIN has undertaken a project to assess food values in Indian food items, including vegetables across the country. Mr Sesikeran said the teams are now touring across the country to collect food sample to analyse.
"The study was done many years ago. Now with the newer technologies and new foods adding to the food basket and the composition of existing food is also changed over the years because of the different farming practices," he said.
Once the date is generated it will help forming a regulation and the project will take two years to publish the data, he added.
Earlier in the panel discussion, the participants felt the need to introduce newer technologies to increase agriculture productivity.
Hyderabad: In a bid to restrict deceptive advertisements, particularly with regards to food articles such as weight-loss or weight-gain drinks, the Food Standards and Safety Authority of India (FSSAI) is going to make it mandatory for the manufacturers to display scientific evidence on the package, reports PTI.
According to B Sesikeran, director at National Institute of Nutrition and chairman of Scientific panel on Food Labelling said the panel recommendations will be notified in a month and after that it will seek public opinion before amending the existing Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011.
"New food labelling regulation will have a lot of things such as if a health drink claims that children will grow taller with the drink then they will have produce evidence to prove their claim," Mr Sesikeran told reporters on the sidelines of 'Technology as Driver of Growth: Ensuring Farm Productivity' a panel discussion organised by IndoAsiancommodities.com.
"We are going to regulate advertisements also. They cannot make claim unless the company does study and generate adequately valid scientific data. Otherwise, claims have to be removed for the advertisement," he added.
He said there is also a proposal to display nutritional values on the hotel menu cards.Though it is not mandatory for the hotels initially it may become a rule after three years, Mr Sesikeran explained.
"Particularly salt, sugar, iron and fat values should be displayed against each food item the hotel offers. Initially, we will ask them to do it voluntarily," he said.
Meanwhile, the NIN has undertaken a project to assess food values in Indian food items, including vegetables across the country. Mr Sesikeran said the teams are now touring across the country to collect food sample to analyse.
"The study was done many years ago. Now with the newer technologies and new foods adding to the food basket and the composition of existing food is also changed over the years because of the different farming practices," he said.
Once the date is generated it will help forming a regulation and the project will take two years to publish the data, he added.
Earlier in the panel discussion, the participants felt the need to introduce newer technologies to increase agriculture productivity.
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