India’s food sector is one of the largest in the world. The food processing market is likely to reach $470 bn by 2025. Tier II and III cities are also gearing up for the trend and are likely to consume more processed food in the years to come. With over 2 million deaths happening every year in India due to contaminated food and water it has become more important than ever to ensure compliance with food safety regulations. Regulating the food sector is crucial to ensure its safety for human consumption. There are over 75000 food processing companies and 7.3 million people working in the food service sector, regularization is a complex task.

FSSAI is doing its part and has started various initiatives to spread awareness among the general public and the industry. The first step of compliance is to have a valid FSSAI license or at least a registration certificate before anyone starts a food business. The maximum penalty that can be levied on a food business operator for conducting business without a valid license is Rs. 5 Lakhs and/or imprisonment of 6 months.

According to a dataset published by the FSSAI, there were more than 48000 licensed/ registered food businesses in India by the end of the year 2020. This number has grown since then. Still, many food businesses are yet to apply for a license/ registration.

We, being a complete food safety solution provider, work with many established as well as budding food businesses and provide them with end-to-end regulatory solutions. In our experience, the major challenge faced by over 77% of our clients who apply for an FSSAI license is the complexity of the process.

Once the application is submitted FSSAI does its due diligence by checking several documents uploaded with the application. Most of the documents must be in the specified formats which are usually not known by the FBOs. Depending on the assessment FSSAI revert with queries to which the FBO must reply within 30 days. The process of license generation may sometimes take up to 6 or more months. Many times, applications get rejected because of a lack of understanding or a wrong interpretation of the requirements.

Almost around 80% of the FBOs we work with didn’t know about the mandatory requirement of filling annual returns before 31^st May every year. Even if some of them did know about it then they didn’t know that for the past 2 years it had to be filed online. As a result, they ended up paying hefty penalties.

Around 90% of the labels that we review for their compliance with the regulatory requirements contained misleading information or claims. Maximum times we found that claims like natural, real, organic, gluten-free, vegan, enriched with so and so mineral or vitamin, and many more were being used by the FBOs without any knowledge of their regulatory definitions. Non-compliant labels have caused penalties for many FBOs. Several food consignments get rejected during imports because of it.