Restaurants can use menu cards, boards to display key nutritional info: FSSAI
The Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSAI) has clarified that restaurants have the flexibility to use various options such as menu cards or boards to display calorific value and other nutritional information of freshly prepared food and beverage items.
It also advised States to avoid “unnecessary action” on food service establishments that are in compliance with these norms.
The clarifications come after the food safety regulator received representations from restaurant industry stakeholders regarding “misinterpretations” of these norms by some State licensing authorities resulting in actions including suspension of licence.
MANDATORY LABELLING
Per FSSAI’s regulations, restaurant players and food service establishments that have central licence or outlets at ten or more locations need to mandatorily follow menu labelling norms..
In its Friday advisory, the FS
SAI said the regulations permit food service establishments to display information such as calorific value of food items, allergens, vegetarian and nonvegetarian labels using “various options.”
It stressed that ecommerce food aggregators need to get the nutritional information from the restaurants and display it on their platforms.
Thus, food service establishments “have the discretion or flexibility” to select any of these methods for providing this information, it pointed out.
“The licensing authorities are hereby advised to adhere to these provisions diligently and avoid unnecessary actions including issuance of notices, suspension of licence, etc, in case the FBOs are compliant” with the requisite provisions of the regulations, the FSSAI advisory added.