The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India notified the Food Safety and Standards (Vegan Foods) Regulations, 2021 vide its notification dated September 6, 2021.
Key points of the Regulations are as follows:
- Vegan Foods: Those foods or food ingredients that do not constitute any ingredients, additives and processing aids of animal origin including milk and milk products, fish, poultry and meat, egg or egg products, honey or honey bee products, materials of insect origin like silk, dyes etc or ingredients that are clarified using animal sourced products e.g., bone char used in sugar bleaching, is in glass in clarifying beer etc.
- General Requirements: Vegan Foods shall not have undergone animal testing for evaluating the safety of the final product or ingredient and shall not comprise any animal derived GMOs or products prepared using animal derived gene for manufacturing the ingredients or products.
- Compliance: The Food Business Operator shall submit an application with all necessary details related to plant or machinery or premises to the Authority. Inspection and verification of the premises shall be done by concerned Food Safety Officer or Designated Officer. The Food Authority may specify guidelines for endorsement of vegan logo and annual market surveillance for such products. The concerned registration or licensing authority shall carry out surveillance of the registered establishment at least once a year.
- Labelling and Display Requirements: All vegan foods shall comply with the packaging and labelling requirements specified under the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020. Also, the seller of vegan food either exclusively or as part of retail merchandise shall store and display such food distinguishable from non-vegan food.
*Tanvi Singh, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.