8th September, 2021

On a heartening note, the Government of India on Monday issued draft Food Safety and Standards (Vegan Foods) Regulations of 2021. These have outlined vegan foods and mentioned the compliance requirements. Interestingly, the draft regulations encompass everything from labelling to the prescribed packaging requirements. Furthermore it revealed a logo that is intended specifically for vegan food products.

Aspects defined by the notification

1. It defines “vegan foods” as “means those foods or food ingredients that have not made use of 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, chitin/chitosan etc or ingredients that are clarified using animal sourced products e.g., bone char used in sugar bleaching, isinglass in clarifying beer etc.”

2. Moreover, it details that “no person shall manufacture, pack, sell, offer for sale, market or otherwise distribute or import any food as vegan food unless they comply with the requirements laid down under these regulations.”

3. They also issued strict regulations with a ‘No animal testing’ clause. FSSAI announced that “food products or ingredients to be called VEGAN, shall not have involved animal testing for evaluating the safety of the final product/ingredient; and, shall not contain any animal derived GMOs or products prepared using animal derived gene for manufacturing the ingredients or products.”

4. It further explained that traceability shall be monitored till manufacturer’s level and it will encompass all requirements necessitated by the Food Authority to uphold the vegan integrity of foods or food ingredients and products at any time.

5. It clearly detailed vegan food compliance requirements. The gazette notification stated, “the Food Business Operator shall submit an application with all necessary details related to plant/machinery/premises to the Authority. Inspection and verification of the premises shall be done by a concerned Food Safety Officer or Designated Officer.”

6. In addition to this they revealed that analytical tools (molecular/chemical/combination of both) shall be used to make sure that there is an absence of animal origin for endorsement of the vegan logo in the license.

7. The Food Authority can also share additional guidelines for endorsement of vegan logo and annual market surveillance of such products. The concerned registration or licensing authority shall carry out surveillance of the registered establishment per annum at the very least, it determines.

8. When it comes to the labelling and display requirements- FSSAI draft regulations state that all vegan foods shall comply with the packaging and labelling requirements specified under the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020. “The seller of vegan food either exclusively or as part of retail merchandise shall store and display such food in a manner distinguishable from non-vegan food,” it mentions.

The newly released logo

Apart from releasing a logo exclusively for vegan food products, they revealed that “The ‘Green‘ colour and the leaf portrays that the ingredient/product is of plant origin. Also, the letter ‘V‘ identifies the product to be ‘Vegan‘.”

The FSSAI has invited all objections or suggestions inside a period of 60 days from the issue of the draft notification. Additionally, in a historic move, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on Wednesday announced that the task force will look into guidelines and provisions for vegan foods in India.

Members of the vegan task force

This task force has 7 key members like Shankar Narayan, founder-president, Satvik Vegan Society (formerly Indian Vegan Society) that encourages the consumption of vegan food and organises vegan festivals, vegan talks that promote a vegan lifestyle for good health. The task force also includes Palak Mehta, Founder and CEO, Vegan First, Pune, ICAR’s retired principal scientist (food and nutrition) Sumedha S. Deshpande, Sangeeta Pandey, Head of Nutrition and Dietetics, Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru, Lalitha Appukkutan, NIMS Medicity, Thiruvananthapuram. 

One representative each from the Ministry of Commerce and the Industry and Quality Council of India are the other members of the task force. 

Palak Mehta, the Founder and CEO of Vegan First, says, "This is a significant step forward not only for the plant-based industry, but also for India. We have always had a strong Ahimsa tradition, and Bharat has been a strong proponent of the satvik way of life. 

“Vegan products, when consumed and promoted, help to preserve this in a variety of ways. It's difficult to discern which items include animal ingredients nowadays. Transparency with consumers is critical, and draft regulation would not only recognizes that but also the fast-growing plant-based sector," Mehta concludes.

This is heartening news indeed!

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