FSSAI notifies amendment relating to the standards for proprietary foods

Through a notification dated 10 October, 2016, the FSSAI has made amendment to the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards & Food Additives) Regulations, 2011 regarding ‘Proprietary Foods’, the existing regulation 2.12.1 has been amended and substituted with the new one. The FSSAI has taken into consideration the objections and suggestions that it had invited from the public on 27 April 2016, on the draft regulation, and has made this amendment. These regulations will be known as Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Ninth Amendment Regulations, 2016. Food Business Operators will need to comply with the amended regulations by 1st July, 2017.

FSSAI has come clean on the definition of proprietary food by giving the details as what is not to be included as proprietary food. Proprietary foods will hence include foods that have not been standardised but will NOT include

• novel foods
• foods for special dietary uses
• foods for special medical purposes
• functional foods
• nutraceuticals
• health supplements
• any such food articles which the Central Government may notify in this behalf

Other amendments 

• The FSSAI goes on to say that any deviation in quality parameters of a standardised food, as specified in the Food Safety and Standards Regulations under the FSSA does not mean that the resultant product is a proprietary food.

• Other than additives other ingredients used in proprietary foods must either be standardised or permitted for use in the preparation of other standardised food under these Regulations. However, FSSAI might specify from time to time the exclusion of certain ingredients.

• Proprietary food may also contain vitamins and minerals in quantities not exceeding one RDA of the respective micronutrients.

• Only those additives and at the levels that have been specified in Appendix A of these Regulations may be used in propriety foods and according to the category and subcategory of foods they are mentioned in. FSSAI has also made it mandatory to mention on labels the food category or sub-category along with the generic name, nature and composition of the proprietary food.