June 25, 2021
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (“FSSAI”) is all set to extend its labelling regime to restaurant chains operating in multiple states or having outlets at 10 or more locations from 1st January, 2022. The FSSAI has included restaurant chains under its labelling regime vide notification dated 21st August, 2020 amending the erstwhile Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011 (“FSS Regulations”).
The provisions including restaurant chains in the said amendment was later subsumed into the newly enacted Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020 (“Regulations”), which repealed the labelling regime existed under the FSS Regulations. The Regulations require restaurant chains to furnish a variety of information to consumers against food items displayed on their menus viz., calorific value, allergen details, nutritional information, health warnings etc.
The FSSAI’s move is expected to give a hard trail to most of the restaurant chains as the new requirement is not just about displaying this information but about ensuring adherence to what is assured in the declaration. When specific parameters for nutritional information and calorific values are displayed, the chefs at these restaurants will be left with a laborious task to keep a watch on the ingredients and their quantity while preparing food. This becomes a pre-requisite as once you declare and breach the declared parameters, then the regulatory clutches could become active and restaurants could end up being caught for selling misbranded food which is punishable with fine up to Rs. 3 Lakhs under Section 52 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (“Act”).
This could become difficult for these restaurants, as under Section 40 of the Act, even a consumer can have the food analyzed and set the prosecution regime under the Act in motion. Thus these provisions require the restaurants to keep a constant vigil on the foods served to ensure not being caught up in legal turmoil.