FSSAI Food Label Requirements: A Practical Checklist for Brands

Food label compliance in India trips up experienced brands regularly, not because the rules are obscure but because they come from two different authorities and both apply at once. FSSAI governs food safety information. Legal Metrology governs commercial declarations. A pack has to satisfy both.

What FSSAI requires on a packaged food label

1. 01Name of the food. The common or generic name that accurately describes what is inside, not only the brand name.
2. 02List of ingredients. In descending order of composition by weight at the time of manufacture. Compound ingredients need their own sub list.
3. 03Nutritional information. Energy, protein, carbohydrate, total sugars, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol and sodium, expressed per hundred grams or hundred millilitres, and per serving where a serving is declared.
4. 04Vegetarian or non vegetarian mark. The green filled circle in a green square, or the brown filled triangle in a brown square, displayed on the principal display panel in contrast to the background.
5. 05Allergen declaration. Major allergens present must be declared, including cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts and added sulphites.
6. 06FSSAI licence number. Displayed with the FSSAI logo.
7. 07Date marking. Date of manufacture or packing, and either a use by date, a best before date, or an expiry date as applicable to the product.
8. 08Country of origin. Required for imported food.
9. 09Instructions for use and storage. Where the product needs them to be safe or usable.
10. 10Batch or lot identification. For traceability and recall.

What Legal Metrology adds on top

The Legal Metrology Packaged Commodities Rules apply to essentially every retail pack, food or otherwise, and they govern the commercial declarations.

• Name and complete address of the manufacturer, packer or importer.
• Net quantity in standard units. Weight for solids, volume for liquids, and count where appropriate.
• Retail sale price as a maximum retail price inclusive of all taxes.
• Month and year of manufacture, packing or import.
• Consumer care contact details, including a name, telephone number and email address for complaints.

Type height, the rule most artwork gets wrong

Legal Metrology specifies minimum height for the declarations, scaled to the size of the pack or the area of the principal display panel. Designers routinely set mandatory text at whatever size looks balanced, and it fails inspection.

The practical implication is that a small pack cannot carry the same artwork as a large one simply scaled down. The mandatory text has a floor and the creative has to work around it. Establish the minimum sizes for every pack format at the start of the design process, not at the end.

Errors that cause the most rework

• Mandatory text below minimum height. The single most frequent cause of rejected artwork.
• Vegetarian mark in the wrong place or the wrong colour. It belongs on the principal display panel, in the specified colours, in contrast with its background. A mark that blends into a green pack design fails.
• Ingredients out of order. The list must be in descending order by weight. Reordering for readability is not permitted.
• Allergens hidden inside a compound ingredient. If a compound ingredient contains a major allergen, it has to be declared.
• Nutritional values that do not reconcile. Energy figures that do not match the declared macronutrients invite scrutiny.
• Missing consumer care details. Frequently omitted, and specifically required.
• Illegible print on a busy background. Legibility is a requirement, not an aesthetic preference. Mandatory text over a photographic background usually fails.

Designing so compliance does not fight the brand

Compliance and shelf impact are usually presented as a tradeoff. They are not, if the mandatory content is treated as a fixed input rather than something to squeeze in later.

1. 01Build a compliance block before the creative starts. Set every mandatory element at its legal minimum size and measure the area it occupies.
2. 02Design the creative around that block. The remaining area is the real canvas.
3. 03Reserve a clean, unpatterned zone for mandatory text so legibility is never in question.
4. 04If the block will not fit, change the format rather than shrinking the text. A larger label, a back label, a sleeve or a fold out booklet label are all legitimate answers.
5. 05Have compliance sign off the artwork before plates are made, because a plate remake after a compliance failure is a real cost.

Practical notes on printing regulated packs

• Regulations change. Digital printing lets you update artwork between batches without writing off plate inventory, which matters in a category where a rule can change mid year.
• Date and batch coding is applied at the filling line, so leave a clear, unvarnished coding window in the artwork. Coders do not print reliably over gloss varnish.
• For export, the destination market has its own scheme. Do not assume an Indian compliant label travels.
• Keep a signed artwork proof for every SKU version in production. It is the first thing requested in an investigation.

Labelify prints for food and beverage, nutraceutical and seasoning and spice brands, and returns a substrate proof within one business day so compliance review happens on the real material.