FSSAI makes menu labeling mandatory all restaurant and Hotels:
How many calories are in the food you are eating in the
hotel or restaurant, and which nutrients are included? Many hotels do not give
this information, and that is why the Food Regulator of India, FSSAI, had said
that it should be made mandatory. For this, the orders issued to restaurants
and hotels were also issued. The food regulator has now issued notices to many
hotels and restaurants for not giving information about the calorie count on
the menu.
FSSAI has asked these hotels why action should not be taken
to close their business or cancel their license. Let us know the whole story.
FSSAI issued a notification in November 2020. In this notification, it was said
that all hotels and restaurants that have a central license or if their outlets
are more than 10, then they will have to mention the calories count. According to
the notification, the calorie value will have to be given not only on the menu
card but also on the booklets.
These rules were mandatory for hotels and restaurants from
January 1, 2022. Later this deadline was extended. This was done on July 1,
2022, but even after passing the July deadline, many hotels did not follow
these rules, and after that FSSAI started issuing notices. This rule of FSSAI
is not only for your local hotel but also for restaurant chains like
McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King.
In July 2022, FSSAI made it clear that online food business
operators will also have to follow these new rules. That is, Swiggy, Zomato and
all operators selling packaged food online will have to provide information
about calories, nutritional, value, and allergic content on their websites and
apps. Although menu labeling is being discussed in India for the last two and a
half years, in many countries this system has been going on for a long time.
Menu labeling lets you know how many calories are in what
you are eating, and how many nutrients are in the food. And a customer gets the
freedom of an informed choice in such a situation. It was also the idea of
FSSAI that only the customer should get an informed choice and at the same
time, the problem which comes due to eating habits can also be curbed.
FSSAI's latest labeling and display norms:
The Indian government has taken strict action to provide
information about nutrients in the menu of hotels and restaurants. Food
regulator FSSAI has sent notices to many big hotels and restaurants asking why
action should not be taken to close their business. Because the hotels and
restaurants are not following the order of FSSAI. Let us understand the whole
matter.
Show cause notice has also been sent to all the restaurants,
even you will be able to give an opinion by sending a notice. The government
has told the restaurant that, they should provide information on nutrition and
calories count along with the food menu. This is the case in 2020 when the
government made this rule and it was said that the food that is consumed is
your customer. How many calories are in whatever you are eating? Is there any
allergy agent available in it?
What kind of chemicals were used in it or what kind of preservatives are used in it? You should give complete information about it. This is the same as when you see it on packaged food, it would have been written there on the menu, how much protein, and how much carbohydrate was used positively. Do you have to mention these things on the menu in the hotel or restaurant? This rule was implemented in January 2022 this year?
Along with the suggestion of all those hotels and
restaurants, another amendment was also done in July 2022 and it was mandatory
for all the online delivery platforms like swiggy, Zomato, etc. From July 1, it
was mandated to mention to all the hotels, restaurants, and delivery platforms
how much content is there in the food you are serving, and how many calories of
nutrition, preservatives, and chemicals are used in that food.
Now the government i.e. FSSI started doing a review of these
hotels and restaurants, then they saw that all the hotels are not following
this guideline anywhere, then they sent a notice to them and this notice is now
available to them. June on all the big hotels and restaurants that we hear you
see every day, i.e. Indian Hotel, Hyatt, Hotel Lalit or any number of big hotels
on it.
Apart from this, all the big restaurant chains, especially
in mainland China, notices have been sent to all them, and FSSAI had issued a
notice. The notice went to the regional office and those regional officers also
gave notice to all those entities and asked what is the problem with you. That
you are not ready to follow the rules that you had prepared through your
consultation.
There were some in these associations who said that we have asked the government or the regulator for some time. But some also said that we are almost done with the work, and next month they will start giving details to the manufacturer, so overall the government is strict.
They wants that all the content should be told exactly to those people so that before eating we know what is in the food and whether it can cause any kind of harm to us from anywhere. These rules were to be implemented from July 1 of the year. But why hotels and restaurants have failed to implement this idea of FSSAI, and now what will be the next step of FSSAI?
Today, many big chains have implemented it on this, but many restaurants are still not following it. We hope you like the article. If you have any questions, please comment on our site www.tradeipohub.co.in. Thanks for reading.