FSSAI study to highlight consumer behaviour & consumption

Indore : After withdrawing four caffeinated energy drinks from the market, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has initiated a study on consumer behaviour and consumption pattern of these drinks across the country.

The aim of conducting the study is to know about the profile of consumers using Caffeinated/ Energy drinks along with the consumption levels among children, teenagers and young professionals. After getting the report, the FSSAI intends to review the caffeine standards proposed for the caffeinated/ energy drinks.

The regulatory body has called for Expression of Interest (EOI) from the consumer research companies to conduct the study and to provide results to the FSSAI.

In its EOI, the FSSAI has mentioned that consumption of caffeinated/energy drinks in India has shown an upward trend during the past decade. The FSSAI considers it expedient to review the intake of caffeine and other ingredients present in these drinks after conducting a detailed study among various target and consumer groups of Caffeinated/ Energy drinks to understand their usage pattern, preferences and attitude of the consumer groups towards their consumption in view of various studies recently conducted internationally in this behalf.

The target respondents for the survey would be teenagers and youngsters i.e. among students, young professionals, managers and office goers of age-group of 15-45 yrs.

“Geographical coverage of the study would be across Tier-I, Tier-II and Tier III cities. Metros/Tier-I cities would include Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad whereas tier-II and tier-III cities would be Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Kota, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Manipal, Noida, Patna, Pune, Vadodara, Vishakhapatnam and Shillong. It is to be noted that the FSSAI had withdrew the NOC of few energy drinks when category of energy drinks were found to have contents not included in approved list of Food Safety and Standards Regulations. The titles of the products were also found to be misleading.