The Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018

Context: The Maharashtra FDA issued notices to actors over Vimal Elaichi endorsements, alleging surrogate advertising of prohibited pan masala in violation of food safety and consumer protection norms.

About The Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018:

What It Is?

• A statutory regulatory framework notified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under Section 92 read with Sections 23 and 24 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
• It governs how Food Business Operators (FBOs), advertisers, and marketers promote food products, formulate nutritional/health claims, and display public commercial communications.

Aim: To ensure truthful, scientifically supported food advertising, protecting consumers from misleading claims, surrogate advertising and unfair trade practices.

Key Features of the Regulations:

• General Principles of Truthfulness & Non-Deception: Mandates that all marketing communications and claims must be unambiguous, clear, and scientifically meaningful; advertisements must not encourage or condone excessive consumption or undermine healthy lifestyles.
• Regulation of Brand Adjectives & Mandatory Disclaimers: Use of words such as Natural, Fresh, Pure, Original, Traditional, or Authentic in brand or trade names must strictly adhere to prescribed qualifying criteria.
• Prohibition of Medical Endorsements & Disease Cure Claims: Strictly prohibits advertisements from claiming that a food can prevent, alleviate, treat, or cure any specific physiological disease or disorder; labels cannot state recommended/approved by medical or health professionals.
• Substantiation of Nutritional & Health Claims: Requires all nutritional content, comparative, and health claims (including Nutrient Function and Reduction of Disease Risk claims) to be backed by validated laboratory methods and peer-reviewed human intervention studies.
• Rigorous Non-Addition Standards: Formulates strict qualifying criteria for claims asserting non-addition of sugars (mandating the label CONTAINS NATURALLY OCCURRING SUGARS where applicable), salt/sodium, and food additives.
• Prior Approval Mechanism for Novel Health Claims: Obligates FBOs and marketers to seek prior formal approval from FSSAI for reduction-of-disease-risk claims before publishing commercial communications.
• Ban on Exploiting the FSSAI Logo for Marketing: While displaying the FSSAI license number and logo is mandatory for packaging and traceability, using the FSSAI emblem as a marketing badge to promote sales or imply product superiority is prohibited.
• Corrective Advertisements & Penalties: Empowers the Food Authority to order the immediate stoppage of deceptive advertisements and mandate the issuance of a corrective advertisement within 30 days through the exact same medium to neutralize misleading impressions, alongside penalties under Section 53 of the FSS Act, 2006.