Apex food regulator, FSSAI recently issued a notice regarding the operationalisation of permitted colors in the distilled Spirited beverages which was put inside the provisions of Draft Food Safety and Standards.
This step of FSSAI came as a reaction after the advisory coming from scientific panel who was investigating the feasibility of the draft.
The direction says that in view of the recommendation and observation by the scientific panel on food additives, it has been decided to operationalise the revised provisions related to use of certain food colour in distilled spirituous beverages except the country liquor. The FBOs can use 100gm/kg of these colours based on recommendations of the scientific panel.
According to the draft, the additives ‘tatrazine and carmoisine’ can only be used individually and their combination is not permitted. Further, Brilliant Blue FCF, Sunset Yellow FCF, Ponceau 4R and Allura Red are not permitted to be used in country liquors as defined under Regulations 2.2 of the FSS Alcoholic Beverages Regulations 2018.
Meanwhile the direction says that on receipt of representation from the stakeholders, the scientific panel had recommended permission of food colour namely ‘Allura Red’ in the food category distilled spirituous beverages except for country liquor upto 100mg/kg.
This provision under the draft are being made functioning and applicable to the spirited beverages with an immediate effect looking forward to the reform it was targeted for. Draft was floored after a strong recommendation coming from the scientific panel working and scavenging through the ifs and buts of the issue.
