Remove “100% Fruit Juice Claim”, Orders FSSAI to Companies

New Delhi: Food Business Operators (FBO) in India can no more claim that their packaged fruit juice is “100 per cent fruit juice”.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), India’s apex food safety authority has directed food business operators (FBOs) to remove any claims of “100 per cent fruit juice” from labels and advertisements of reconstituted fruit juices amid concerns about misleading tags, reported The Telegraph.

Reconstituted juices are created by mixing fruit juice concentrate or pulp with water.

The FSSAI has directed the FBOs to exhaust all existing pre-printed packaging materials for fruit juices before September 1, 2024, said the Union Health Ministry on Monday.

“It has come to the attention of the FSSAI that several FBOs have been inaccurately marketing various types of reconstituted fruit juices by claiming them to be 100 per cent fruit juices,” the health ministry said.

The FSSAI has determined that there is no provision for making a 100 per cent claim as such claims is misleading in case of packaged fruit juices. The health ministry said the FSSAI has “reminded” the FBOs that if added sweeteners exceed 15gm/kg, the product must be labelled “sweetened juice”.