Food Labelling and Misleading Claims in India: FSSAI, Organic Certification and the Consumer Protection Framework

When you pick up a bottle of honey or a jar of ghee from a supermarket shelf, you trust what's written on the label. "100% Pure." "100% Natural." "100% Organic." These small words influence what crores of Indians buy every day. But what if these words are not really true?

For decades, companies wrote whatever sold. Regulators were slow, confused, or absent. Consumers had no way to verify.

But the machinery has changed. On August 3, 2026, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued a Prohibition Order against Dabur India Limited — one of India's oldest and largest FMCG companies — asking it to withdraw multiple food products carrying "100%" claims. Dabur's share price fell ~4% the next day.

In this article, we will walk through this entire evolution — layer by layer, in simple story form.

Here is what we will cover:

• The Core Problem — why food labels became a lie factory
• FSSAI — India's food regulator and how it came into being
• The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 — the parent law
• FSS (Advertising & Claims) Regulations, 2018 — the rulebook on what you can print
• FSS (Organic Foods) Regulations, 2017 — who decides what is truly organic
• Jaivik Bharat Logo, NPOP, PGS-India — the certification ecosystem
• Compound Foods — a small technical concept that trapped Dabur
• The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and CCPA — the second layer of defence
• ASCI and Codex Alimentarius — self-regulation and global standards
• The Bigger Picture — the modern food-labelling doctrine

Imagine you are shopping for cooking oil. Two bottles sit next to each other. One says just "coconut oil." The other says "100% Pure Virgin Coconut Oil — Natural, Organic, Cold Pressed." Which will you pick? Most people pick the second — even if it costs ₹50 more. Because those words trigger trust.

Now the honest question — how does the company prove any of this? What machine measures "purity"? What lab test shows "100% natural"? And if "organic" needs a certificate, does that bottle actually have one?

For decades, this was the gap. Companies printed powerful adjectives. Consumers trusted them. Regulators did not check. Trust started eroding. The question was simple: Agar company ne label pe kuch bhi likh diya, toh use kaun rokega?

Historically, the answer was: nobody, really.

Before 2006, India had eight different laws dealing with food — the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954, Fruit Products Order 1955, Meat Food Products Order 1973, Edible Oils Packaging Order, Milk and Milk Products Order, and several more. Each law had its own ministry, its own inspectors, its own rules.

Meanwhile, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, set up in 1963 by FAO and WHO, was already publishing global food standards. Developed countries had unified food regulators. India was stuck in a bureaucratic maze from the 1950s.

After years of debate, Parliament passed the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

The FSS Act, 2006 did two big things:

1. Repealed all fragmented laws and merged food regulation into one framework
2. Created a single central regulator — the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) — which became fully operational in 2011

Where does FSSAI sit? — Under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Headquartered in New Delhi.

What does FSSAI do?

• Sets food standards
• Licenses every food business operator (FBO)
• Frames labelling and packaging rules
• Approves food additives, colours, preservatives
• Runs food testing laboratories
• Issues Prohibition Orders (the power used against Dabur)
• Publishes advisories and safety alerts

Chairperson & CEO — FSSAI has a Chairperson (typically a senior civil servant) and a CEO who runs day-to-day operations.

By 2015-2018, FSSAI recognised a new problem — misleading claims. Companies were writing "no added sugar" on juices full of natural sugar, "low fat" on hidden-fat products, "natural" on chemically processed foods, "organic" without any certification.

To tackle this, FSSAI framed the FSS (Advertising & Claims) Regulations, 2018.

Core principles:

• Every claim must be truthful, verifiable, and unambiguous
• Claims like "100% natural" or "100% pure" must be scientifically provable
• Health claims (like "good for heart") need scientific backing
• Nutrition claims must follow specific numerical thresholds
• Comparative claims ("better than brand X") need evidence
• Any claim a reasonable consumer could misunderstand is banned

The specific problem with "100%" — FSSAI's argument is that "100% Pure" or "100% Natural" is not scientifically measurable. Pure of what? Natural in what sense? These words are emotional, not factual.

Related earlier action — in June 2024, FSSAI directed all FBOs to remove "100% fruit juice" claims from reconstituted juice labels — an industry-wide advisory. In May 2025, FSSAI issued another advisory extending this "no 100% claim" rule across food categories.