By Ankush Chibber, 05-Apr-2012
Stung by a recent report that damned many of India’s top food brands for containing high amounts of sugar, salt, and fats, the country’s food regulators are moving against the worst offenders.
TFAs are coming under scrutiny in IndiaFirst in line is trans fatty acid (TFA) content in vanaspati oil, where new standards are due by the end of May, a spokesperson for Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) told FoodNavigator-Asia."We are going to notify rules that would limit TFA content in vanaspati to 10% by the end of May,” the FSSAI spokesperson said of a deadline moved forward several months.
The ministry said TFA content in vanaspati oil would eventually be reduced to 5% by the end of 2013.
The proposed standards were first issued after a report from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which stated that seven branded edible oils in India had TFA content up to 12 times the 2% benchmark used in Denmark.
Broader change
Regulatory change is being prompted by labelling issues which were highlighted in another recent report by the CSE. That suggested Indian food brands are resorting to misbranding and misinformation to hide the real quantity of salt, sugar, and fat in their foods.
The report, which got widespread local media coverage, saw the CSE testing 16 major brands of popular food products, including Nestlé’s Maggi Noodles and Haldiram’s Aloo Bhujia.
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