Remove 100% fruit juice claims, FSSAI asks food business operators

New Delhi: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has asked the food business operators to remove the claims of “100% fruit juice” from the advertisements and labels of reconstituted fruit juices widely found in the market.

Even though the FBOs have been asked to withdraw such claims with immediate effect, the companies have been given time till September 1, 2024 to exhaust all “pre-printed existing packaging material.”

Reconstituted fruit juices are those products in which a fruit juice concentrate is mixed with water to create the final product. A large number of commercially available fruit juices fall in this category.

Since existing food safety regulations have no provisions to manufacture “100%” fruit juice, all such claims are misleading, the FSSAI says in a media statement released by the Union Health Ministry here on Monday.

The new directive comes in the wake of the regulator receiving complaints that several FBOs have been inaccurately marketing various types of reconstituted fruit juices by claiming them to be 100% fruit juices.

There is no provision in the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018 for making a ‘100%’ claim.

“Such claims are misleading, particularly under conditions where the major ingredient of the fruit 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,” it says.

Specifically, in the ingredient list, the word “reconstituted” must be mentioned against the name of the juice that is reconstituted from the concentrate. Additionally, if added nutritive sweeteners exceed 15 gm/kg, the product must be labelled as ‘sweetened juice’.

The FBOs have been asked to comply with the standards for fruit juices as specified in the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards & Food Additives) Regulation, 2011. Also the labels must be in consonance with the Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020.