The apex food regulator, FSSAI, has issued a draft of regulations with respect to standards of dairy analogue not sourced from animals or dairy. The regulations also define a logo for all pre-packaged milk and milk products.
While releasing the logo, the draft says that all milk and milk products, including composite milk products, can exclusively use the following logo on the product label.
Called, Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Amendment Regulations, 2020, these regulations define the dairy analogue, its nomenclature and essential composition and quality factors including standard for milk fat products.
The draft has sought objections and response from the stakeholders by September 30, 2020.
According to the draft regulation, analogue in the dairy context means an imitation product that is designed or structured to mimic, or offered as an alternative/replacement to, a milk or milk product or composite milk product as defined in these regulations by partial or full substitution of selected milk components with other components from non-dairy sources, or prepared by using non-dairy ingredient(s) exclusively or in combination with dairy ingredients.
However, for such products, dairy term or phonetically similar or spell alike terms shall not be used in the nomenclature of the product. Also, the name of the dairy ingredient used in the product shall be indicated in the list of ingredients, wherever applicable, says the regulation.
And declaration “This is not a Dairy Product” shall be made on the label of such products in case of analogue product.
The draft also says that the method for determination of adulteration of vegetable oil in ghee will be done by RP-HPLC (Reversed Phase-High Performance Liquid Chromatography) method as notified by FSSAI.