The Food Safety and Standards (Import) First Amendment Regulations 2021

Subject – Governance

Context – FSSAI tightens norms for global firms bringing food products into India

Concept –

To ensure import of safe food products, the FSSAI has notified a new regulatory framework for foreign facilities that bring food items to India.
Under the regulations, foreign food manufacturing facilities that make products in certain categories for export to India will need to register with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and may also be subjected to inspection by Indian food safety officials.
- Officials from FSSAI and relevant ministry or organisation or department or recognised auditing agency shall be nominated by the Food Authority for the purpose of inspection of foreign food manufacturing facilities.
The Food Safety and Standards (Import) First Amendment Regulations, 2021, will come into effect from June 1.
This is similar to the protocols followed by international food safety agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration.
The FSSAI said that it will specify the categories of food products from time-totime based on its risk assessment for which international factories will need to register with the regulator.
The registration will be given for two years.
The inspection can be done even after the registration is obtained by these manufacturing facilities.