Navigating Food Safety in India with FSSAI: Roles and Achievements

Every time you buy a packet of biscuits, order food at a restaurant, or pick up a bottle of cooking oil, there is an invisible layer of protection at work. In India, that protection comes from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, commonly known as FSSAI. It is the statutory body responsible for ensuring that the food you eat is safe, wholesome, and honestly labelled – from the factory floor to your plate. Understanding how FSSAI works, what powers it holds, and what it has achieved is essential for anyone studying consumer protection law in India.

The legislative foundation: why FSSAI was needed 🔗

Before FSSAI came into existence, India’s food safety framework was a patchwork of at least seven different laws administered by multiple ministries. The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954; the Fruit Products Order, 1955; the Meat Food Products Order, 1973; and the Milk and Milk Products Order, 1992 – each dealt with a separate category of food, creating confusion, duplication, and regulatory gaps. A manufacturer could comply with one ministry’s rules but fall through the cracks of another’s.

The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (FSS Act) was enacted precisely to fix this problem. It brought all these fragmented laws under one umbrella and created FSSAI as a single, independent statutory authority. The FSS Act describes its core purpose clearly: to lay down science-based standards for food articles and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale, and import, ensuring safe and wholesome food for human consumption. FSSAI was formally established on 5 September 2008 and became fully operational in 2011 after its Rules and key Regulations were notified. This shift marked a transition from a multi-level, multi-departmental control system to a single line of command, with greater focus on self-compliance rather than a purely punitive regulatory model.

Structure and composition of FSSAI 🔗

FSSAI functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It is headed by a Chairperson who holds the rank of Secretary to the Government of India, along with 22 members drawn from diverse fields including food science, toxicology, microbiology, consumer affairs, and relevant government ministries. At least one-third of the members are required to be women. This multi-disciplinary composition ensures that decisions are informed by a wide range of expertise rather than a single bureaucratic lens.

FSSAI’s headquarters is in New Delhi, with regional offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Guwahati, and Kochi. The authority also oversees a network of food testing laboratories – including 22 referral laboratories, 72 state and UT laboratories, and over 112 NABL-accredited private laboratories – spread across the country. Food Safety Officers appointed at the state level are responsible for day-to-day enforcement of the FSS Act on the ground.

Core functions and statutory powers of FSSAI 🔗

Section 16 of the FSS Act, 2006 outlines the specific functions FSSAI has been mandated to perform. These are not just administrative roles – they are statutory obligations with legal backing.

Setting science-based food standards 🔗

FSSAI frames regulations that prescribe standards for food products, additives, contaminants, toxins, and residues. These standards are laid down under the Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulation, 2011 and the Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations, 2011. Currently, FSSAI has notified standards for around 377 products – a number critics argue is far too low compared to over 10,000 standards maintained by food regulators in many other countries, though expansion of this list remains an ongoing priority.

Licensing and registration of food businesses 🔗

Any food business in India – whether it manufactures, stores, transports, or sells food – must obtain either registration or a licence from FSSAI, depending on the scale and nature of its operations. This licensing regime, operationalised through the FoSCoS (Food Safety Compliance System), covers everything from large food processing plants to small restaurant operators. In 2021, FSSAI introduced perpetual licences for food businesses, subject to annual return filing, reducing the compliance burden for restaurants and food manufacturers.

Surveillance, inspection, and enforcement 🔗

FSSAI conducts regular inspections and risk-based audits of food production and processing facilities. When violations are found, the authority has powers to impose penalties, suspend licences, and initiate prosecution. The authority also runs periodic surveillance drives – for instance, in 2023, FSSAI announced a pan-India milk and milk products surveillance exercise specifically to detect and curb adulteration in the dairy supply chain.

Accreditation of food testing laboratories 🔗

FSSAI sets the procedures and guidelines for notifying and accrediting food testing laboratories as per ISO 17025 standards. It has developed the Indian Food Laboratories Network (INFoLNET), a web-based system that connects food testing labs across the country, enabling real-time tracking of sample testing and results by Food Safety Officers and Food Business Operators (FBOs).

Regulating food imports 🔗

Food imports into India must clear FSSAI’s scrutiny before they enter the market. FSSAI officers carry out import controls and send selected samples to accredited laboratories for testing. The Food Import Clearance System (FICS) is the online platform that manages licensing, registration, and import clearance for food consignments. This is a critical function given India’s growing exposure to the global food trade.

Scientific advice and international standard-setting 🔗

FSSAI provides scientific and technical advice to the Central Government on food safety policy and crisis management. It also contributes to the development of international food standards, sanitary, and phytosanitary measures – helping align India’s domestic norms with global frameworks such as those set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

Training enforcement personnel and food business operators 🔗

Regulation alone cannot ensure food safety if the people enforcing standards or running food businesses lack the knowledge to apply them. FSSAI has invested significantly in capacity building on both fronts.

For Food Business Operators, FSSAI launched the Food Safety Training and Certification (FoSTaC) programme, which mandates a trained and certified Food Safety Supervisor on every food business premises. The programme covers topics from basic food hygiene to advanced food safety management, and is aimed at improving self-compliance rather than relying entirely on external inspection. The initiative targets food businesses across sectors – from large manufacturers to street food vendors.

For enforcement personnel, FSSAI inaugurated its National Training Centre in Ghaziabad in June 2023, providing a dedicated facility for training food safety officers from across states. The centre is designed to standardise the skills of inspectors and bring greater uniformity to enforcement practices nationwide.

FSSAI has also deployed Food Safety on Wheels (FSW) – mobile food testing vans that bring laboratory testing facilities directly to districts. These vans serve a dual purpose: conducting on-the-spot testing and running awareness programmes at the community level.

Consumer education and public outreach 🔗

FSSAI’s mandate explicitly includes promoting general awareness about food safety and standards. The authority has pursued this through a range of structured campaigns and grassroots programmes.

The Eat Right India movement 🔗

The most prominent of FSSAI’s consumer-facing initiatives is the Eat Right India movement, launched on 10 July 2018. Built on three pillars – Eat Safe, Eat Healthy, and Eat Sustainable – the movement works simultaneously on changing consumer behaviour and improving food business practices. It is aligned with flagship government programmes like Ayushman Bharat and POSHAN Abhiyaan, giving it a broad institutional reach.

On the demand side, Eat Right India runs programmes like Eat Right Campus (targeting workplaces, colleges, and hospitals) and Eat Right School (targeting school children). The DART Book – a practical guide for testing common food adulterants at home with simple methods – has been distributed to empower consumers at the household level. Mass campaigns like Aaj Se Thoda Kam (focused on reducing salt, fat, and sugar intake) and the Trans-Fat Free India initiative (aimed at eliminating trans fats) address specific dietary health risks.

The scale of outreach has been notable. The Swastha Bharat Yatra cyclothon – described as one of the largest of its kind globally – saw over 21,600 volunteer cyclists cover more than 20,000 km across 2,156 locations, reaching an estimated 25 million people with Eat Right India messaging. The initiative was recognised internationally, winning the Rockefeller Foundation’s Food Systems Vision Prize in 2021 and receiving acknowledgement from the World Health Organisation for its innovative approach.

Safe and nutritious food (SNF) initiative 🔗

The Safe and Nutritious Food (SNF) initiative takes a settings-based approach to food safety education. It runs programmes targeting specific environments: SNF@Home, SNF@School, SNF@Workplace, SNF@Hospital, and SNF@Eatout, among others. Each setting comes with tailored materials – the Pink Book for home kitchens, the Yellow Book for school children, and the Orange Book for workplaces – making the messaging practical and context-specific.

Food fortification and organic food promotion 🔗

FSSAI has promoted food fortification as a policy tool to address micronutrient deficiencies. Staples like wheat flour, rice, milk, edible oil, and double-fortified salt are being fortified with iron, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, folic acid, and iodine. Separately, the Jaivik Bharat initiative – part of the Food Safety and Standards (Organic Foods) Regulations, 2017 – provides a certification and labelling framework for authentic organic food, backed by the Indian Organic Integrity (IOI) database developed jointly by FSSAI, APEDA, and PGS-India.

Key achievements since establishment 🔗

FSSAI’s consolidation of India’s food regulatory landscape has produced measurable results. The move from fragmented legislation to a single authority created clarity for consumers, traders, and manufacturers alike about applicable standards and compliance obligations. The State Food Safety Index (SFSI), released annually, creates competitive accountability among states and UTs in maintaining food safety standards, with states like Gujarat, Goa, and Tamil Nadu consistently ranking among the top performers. In 2024, FSSAI also mandated that total sugar, salt, and saturated fat content on packaged food labels must be displayed in bold and larger font – a labelling reform directly aimed at enabling more informed consumer choices.

In 2024, FSSAI launched a research initiative on microplastics as emerging food contaminants, collaborating with CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research and ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology to develop exposure data and standard testing protocols – demonstrating a commitment to keeping food standards current with evolving risks.

Persistent challenges 🔗

Despite its achievements, FSSAI continues to face structural limitations. The number of notified product standards remains low relative to international peers. Many state food testing laboratories suffer from inadequate infrastructure and a shortage of qualified manpower, which affects the reliability and volume of food sample testing. There is a documented acute shortage of licensing and enforcement officers in several states. Small-scale vendors, hawkers, and petty retailers – who collectively serve a large portion of India’s population – are largely outside the FSSAI licensing net, creating a significant blind spot in the safety framework. Import clearance processes have also been criticised for delays caused by inconsistencies between FSSAI’s labelling requirements and internationally accepted standards.

These challenges do not undermine FSSAI’s importance, but they do underscore that building an effective food safety system for a country of India’s size and diversity is an ongoing process, not a one-time legislative achievement.

What do you think? Given that millions of Indians regularly buy food from small vendors and hawkers who fall outside FSSAI’s licensing requirements, should the law be amended to bring them under a simplified registration framework – and if so, how should compliance be made practical without burdening already marginalised livelihoods? And with packaged food now required to display nutritional information in larger, bolder fonts, do labelling reforms alone go far enough to protect consumers who may have limited literacy or nutritional awareness?

References

1. https://fssai.gov.in/cms/about-fssai.php
2. https://www.fssai.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Food_Safety_Standards_Act_2006.pdf
3. https://mohfw.gov.in/
4. https://www.fssai.gov.in/upload/uploadfiles/files/Compendium_Food_Product_Standards_Additives_Regulations_2011.pdf
5. https://foodlicensing.fssai.gov.in/
6. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1929337
7. https://eatrightindia.gov.in/eri-initiatives.jsp
8. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/initiative/food-system-vision-prize/