Relief for Indian vegan food fans: FSSAI to launch labelling regulations soon

After clarifying that plant-based beverages cannot be classified as milk, the Food Safety and Standards of India (FSSAI) is getting serious about the labelling of plant-based foods.

India’s food regulator FSSAI has proposed draft regulations to launch the labelling and traceability of vegan food products. Once implemented, all certified vegan foods will also carry a special logo to distinguish them from non-vegan items.

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By definition, vegan food is one that does not use any ingredients, additives and processing aids of animal origin including milk, fish, poultry, meat, egg or honey-related products. FSSAI also adds that such products cannot contain materials of insect origin such as silk, dyes or chitosan.

Vegan products must not be involved in animal testing for safety evaluations. They should also not contain any animal-derived GMO (or genetically modified organisms).

The regulations are an effort to help consumers easily identify vegan or plant-based food products as many local and international players like Beyond Meat, Imagine Meats, Good Dot, Urban Platter and more enter the segment.

In fact, the global meat substitute industry was valued at around $20.7 billion in 2020 by research firm Euromonitor.

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