The Food Authority is planning to bring out a comprehensive regulatory document called “Food-‘O’-copoeia”, much like the Indian Pharma-Copoeia. The Food-‘O’-copoeia would be a collection of food category-wise monographs that would be a single point reference for all applicable standards for a specific product category; and, will be specifying complete standards, labelling and claim requirements for that product category, specific packaging requirements, any other regulatory provisions that need to be met. This would also provide the list of methods that a laboratory has to follow while analysing the samples of the specific food/food product category. This would contain a total of 16 product category specific monographs and 1 monograph which would contain all the general requirements to be met by all the food product categories.

FSSAI is working on a regulation (which would be voluntary to begin with) specific to menu labelling that would mainly be covering food service establishments and/or FBOs. This regulation would empower the consumers with information on food they eat as food service establishments would declare quality (type of preparation, composition, nutritional including any allergens and energy) and quantity (amount, number, size etc) of the products per serving.

FSSAI has made quick progress towards the use of advanced technologies for food testing since the year 2019. Several new rapid food testing devices/kits for detection of food-borne pathogens and toxins have been introduced. These devices ensure “faster, better, cheaper” real-time testing of food. FSSAI has so far, has approved 30 rapid food testing kits/devices under these regulations. There is a need to popularize these Rapid Tool kits to ensure they are widely used.