New Delhi: According to a recent press release from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), all food business operators (FBOs) have been asked to remove any claim of “100% fruit juices” from the labels and advertisements of reconstituted fruit juices.
This has come after the FSSAI discovered that several FBOs were deliberately marketing these products as 100% fruit juice, which is misleading because there is no provision for making such a claim under the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018.
The FSSAI has clarified that making such claims on the packaging of fruit juice products is particularly misleading when the major ingredient of the juice is water and the primary ingredient, for which the claim is made, is present only in limited concentrations, or when the fruit juice is reconstituted using water and fruit concentrates or pulp. The FSSAI has further said that if the amount of nutritive sweeteners used in the product exceeds 15 gm/kg, then the product must be labelled as “Sweetened juice”.
It has also been asked that all FBOs exhaust all existing pre-printed packaging materials before 1 September, 2024. The FSSAI has taken this step to protect the consumers and ensure that they get the authentic and healthy fruit juice.