New requirements for the vegan food logo have been made necessary by FSSAI

December 25th, 2022

Since a few months ago, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), a department of the Indian government, has actively promoted the numerous advantages of a plant-based diet through a variety of offline and online channels, including newspaper advertisements and their social media channels. They have been promoting nutritional awareness through graphical and educational graphics about the advantages of a plant-based diet, plant-based sources of nutrients like calcium and iron, and more. In an effort to improve the quality of vegan products in India, the regulatory authority has issued new guidelines with respect to the vegan logo.

Every packaging of vegan food, according to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), should bear the notification's designated emblem. And the requirements for the emblem to be printed on vegan food packaging, which was deemed necessary last year, have been announced by India's food safety agency.

Their specifications of the logo

Every packaging of vegan food, according to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), should bear the notification's designated emblem. The vegan food logo should be 10mm long and 7mm wide. It features a green V. The 3.25mm-long image of a leaf should be positioned in the middle of the V in the logo, which should have a green border. The logo, which should be 7mm long and 2mm tall, should include the word vegan.

The logo's overall dimensions should be 15mm in both length and width. To enable consumers quickly recognise and distinguish vegan meals from non-vegan foods, the FSSAI had already introduced a logo for their use.

Image Source: Money Control

Their terminology of what qualifies as vegan fare

Vegan food is defined by the government as food that does not contain any ingredients, additives, flavourings, enzymes, carriers, or processing aids that are derived from animals. Vegan food is also defined as food that is produced and processed without the use of any ingredients, additives, flavourings, carriers, enzymes, or processing aids derived from animals.

The food regulator has also urged producers to follow good production procedures to prevent the unintentional inclusion of non-vegan ingredients. It has been instructed that extensive cleaning should be done before producing vegan items if the production line is shared with non-vegan products or ingredients.

Additional special rules that vegan goods must follow

The FSSAI published a list of the rules that vegan goods must adhere to in June. The action by the food authority was taken to guarantee that the food that is produced, marketed, and distributed in the nation as vegan food is actually vegan. This occurred in the context of rising vegan food demand in India. In response to the rising demand for vegan food in India, the food regulator introduced the draught FSS (Vegan Foods) Regulations 2022 in September 2021, defining vegan cuisine and laying out the legal requirements that food business owners must adhere to.

It created rigorous restrictions to control the selling of vegan food in India due to the rapidly increasing demand. Vegan food imports are also prohibited by the government unless all legal standards are completed.