Context: 

The Advertisement Monitoring Committee at the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) flagged 32 fresh cases of food business operators (FBOs) making misleading claims and advertisements. 

What are the regulations? 

• There are varied regulations to combat misleading advertisements and claims, some are broad, while others are product specific. 
• FSSAI Regulations: 

1. 1. It uses the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising & Claims) Regulations, 2018 which specifically deals with food (and related products).
   2. The claims must be scientifically substantiated by validated methods of characterising or quantifying the ingredient or substance that is the basis for the claim.
   3. Product claims suggesting a prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of a disease, disorder or particular psychological condition is prohibited unless specifically permitted under the regulations of the FSS Act, 2006.

• The Programme and Advertising Codes: It prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 stipulate that advertisements must not imply that the products have some special or miraculous or supernatural property or quality, which is difficult to prove.

Categorization of food products 

• Natural food product: 
  • A food product can be referred to as ‘natural’ if it is a single food derived from a recognised natural source and has nothing added to it. 
  • It should only have been processed to render it suitable for human consumption. 
  • The packaging too must be done without chemicals and preservatives. 

• Made from natural ingredients: Composite foods, which are essentially a mixture of plant and processed constituents, cannot call themselves ‘natural’, instead, they can say ‘made from natural ingredients’.

• Fresh food product: 
  • Products which are not processed in any manner other than washing, peeling, chilling, trimming, cutting or irradiation by ionising radiation not exceeding 1 kG or any other processing such that it remains safe for consumption with the basic characteristics unaltered. 
  • Those with additives (to increase shelf life) may instead use ‘freshly frozen’, ‘fresh frozen’, or ‘frozen from fresh’ to contextualise that it was quickly frozen while fresh.
• Pure: It is to be used for single ingredient foods to which nothing has been added and which are devoid of all avoidable contamination, while unavoidable contaminants are within prescribed controls. 
• Original: It is used to describe food products made to a formulation, with a traceable origin that has remained unchanged over time. They do not contain replacements for any major ingredients.

News Source: The Hindu