June 1, 2021
Apex organization for the cooperative dairy sector – The National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India (NCDFI) has gone to the Delhi High Court by way of a Writ Petition, against the food safety regulator, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), and companies such as Hershey’s, Rakyan Beverages Pvt. Ltd., Istore Direct Trading Pvt. Ltd. (Urban Platter) and Drums Food International Pvt. Ltd. (Epigamia), who are in the business of selling plant-based beverages like soy drinks and almond drinks illegally labelling them as “milk”.
NCDFI has most of the dairy cooperative societies, including AMUL, as its members and is the stakeholder for approximately 17.2 million dairy farmers.
Amul has supported the petition saying that it was directed against the illegal use of the term “milk” and dairy terms for plant-based foods/beverages, the use of which is against statutory provisions of Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the allied Regulations.
In this regard beforehand, Advertising Standards Council of India rubbished complaints filed against dairy giant Amul viz Advertisement – “Plant-Based Dairy analogue products like Soya Beverages, are not Milk”.
The director of Amul said that the plant beverages that claim to be milk is nothing but genetically modified lab food products, made out of chemicals and synthetic materials and the main aim of its manufacturers is to increase their earnings but not employment to dairy farmers.
He explained that the Indian Dairy Industry is a model of co-existence of humans and animals for centuries and foreign funded NGOs are running campaigns to tarnish the Indian Dairy Industry, which unlike the Western world is not a factory farm industry. Cattle are part of the farmer’s family and nobody torture them.
According to Dr. G.S. Rajorhia, president of the Indian Dairy Association, plant-based milk is false and misleading propaganda as milk is a product obtained from mammillary secretion and is defined in the law books of the FSSAI. Adding on that 70% of the milk procurement happens in the rural areas of India where farmers and cattle live together as a family. Further 10 crore families are directly dependent on the Indian dairy sector. Meanwhile, buckling under pressure, it is learned that the apex food regulator of the country has agreed to the submission made by the dairy industry that plant derivatives marketed as milk should be considered as ‘misbranded products.’
Devendra Shah, chairman, Parag Milk Foods Ltd evaluated that FSSAI in its recent regulation regarding the revised standards of milk and milk products stated that products that are constituents not derived from milk are considered to be misbranded as ‘Milk’. Hence, the term ‘dairy products’ (milk & milk products), cannot be used for such products in any advertisement, label, or commercial document.