order allowing small food businesses to get registration for proprietary
food products under Category No. 18 of FoSCoS. Previously, the food
businesses could only have Central licence under FSS Regulations for the
purpose.
The FSSAI order says that since the small and medium food businesses,
particularly manufacturers of sweets, snacks and savouries, have to obtain
Central licences for operations, it was decided to include this product
category for ‘registration’ as well.
The order reads, “In order to ease out the licensing or registration for
such small and medium food businesses manufacturing sweets, snacks and savouries, it has been decided to assign the food product category number 18 in the Food Safety Compliance System –FoSCoS under General Manufacturing’ kind business,” and added, “This will enable such FBOs involved in manufacturing of Indian sweets, snacks, and savouries to apply for registration, state licence or Central licence, as per the eligibility criteria based on their production capacity and turnover.”
According to the FSSAI, it was in receipt of several representations from
industry associations regarding difficulties being faced by small and
medium scale manufacturers/packers of Indian sweets, snacks and savouries due to unavailability of standards of these products under the Food Safety Regulations.
“As a result, small and medium food business operators were required to
obtain the Central licence under the proprietary food products which was
expensive for the FBO and entails onerous compliance for the said
category,” reads the statement by FSSAI.
Now the small and medium food business can find specific category of Indian sweets and Indian snacks and savouries product under Product Category Number 18, which includes products of milk based sweets, cereal based sweets, nut based sweets, Indian confection, fruit and vegetable based sweets, and Indian snacks & savouries products including ready-to-eat and -cook products.
Meanwhile, the order also clarifies that the food category 18 shall not be
applicable to those products whose standards have already been defined by the FSSAI and mapped in the Food Safety Compliance System under product category 1-14 for the purpose of licensing and registration.
