New Delhi: In a major move aimed at putting a check on manufacturing of 'substandard' bakery products, the apex food regulator – Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) – has decided to change the labelling in the packaging of bread.
As per FSSAI's notification, the bread manufacturers would now have to maintain a fixed quality of wheat flour in accordance with the variety of the bread. The apex food regulator has mandated the bread makers to ensure a minimum 75 per cent of wheat flour in wheat bread and it should be mentioned at the pack in readable format.
Similarly, wheat brown bread must contain at least 50 per cent whole grain flour and multigrain bread would need to have minimum 20 per cent grains other than wheat.
The decision in this regard has been taken to check the quality of packaged food products as during the internal surveys conducted by some independent agencies, it had come to the notice of FSSAI that bread manufacturers are not following any prescribed limit of wheat flour in the preparation of different varieties of bread.
"The changes have been suggested to ensure that a consumer gets the right product at the right price as there is no mechanism available with the consumers to verify the product's quality. The consumer can just go through the labels displayed at the packing to get an assurance about the quality. The specified guidelines would encourage fair play among manufacturers," said a senior official at FSSAI.
The changes in labelling norms would also be effective for other kinds of speciality breads such as milk bread, oatmeal bread, bran bread, raisin bread, garlic bread, oregano bread, and fruit bread, etc.
As per the notification, honey breads would now be treated as honey bread if 5 per cent honey is put in flour used in its preparation. Similarly, protein enriched bread label can only be used on breads that are made of flour comprising 20 per cent edible protein.
In egg bread, there should be at least 1.5 per cent edible whole egg solids, while in raisin breads, manufacturers must use 20 per cent raisins and in breads such as garlic, masala, oregano, it must contain minimum 2 per cent of garlic, oregano, etc.