New rules leave no room for ambiguity on shelf life of pre-packed foods

It has taken the food regulator a very long time to remove the ambiguities in the shelf life information on pre-packed foods and uphold the consumer’s right to information, informed choice and safety

It has taken the food regulator a very long time to remove the ambiguities in the shelf life information on pre-packed foods and uphold the consumer’s right to information, informed choice and safety. But it has finally happened.

HT Image

From November 17 this year, that imprecise and nebulous term – “Best Before” – that has led to so much of confusion, food wastage and financial loss to consumers, will finally be banished from the packages. And in its place, the more precise term “Date of Expiry” or “Use By” date will denote the accurate shelf life of a food product. In other words, we will no more be throwing away perfectly safe food on the ground that it is past the “Best Before” date.

Equally important, the ”Use By” or the “Expiry” date can no more be hidden somewhere on the package where consumers cannot see it. The two important dates that tell consumers how fresh the product is and how long it can be stored and consumed, now need to be grouped together and will have to be printed in a clear, conspicuous and easily discernible manner, using indelible ink.

The Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020, notified on November 17, 2020, finally corrects the anomalies that existed for decades in the law governing shelf life information, and food businesses are expected to comply with the regulations from November 17 this year. Hopefully, the food regulators across the country will stringently enforce it.

The legal requirement for printing of shelf life is not new. Long before the Food Safety and Standards Act , 2006 came into being, the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules framed under the PFA Act, 1954, mandated that pre-packed foods specify the shelf life. However, the intent of the law was completely lost because of the absence of precision on how the shelf life should be specified.

Shelf life information basically comprises two parts – (a) the date of manufacture or packaging that helps consumers buy freshly packed or manufactured food; and (b) the date of expiry that indicates how long the food can be stored and consumed.

For an informed decision, these two components of the shelf life should always be together, like you see on medicine packages. But unfortunately, bowing to pressure from food businesses, the authorities never specified in the PFA Rules that these two pieces of information be printed together.

Even worse, the rule makers asked the manufacturers to give the “Best before” date and not the “Expiry” date, and even here, instead of asking businesses to print it in the simplest of formats -- the month and the year in numerals -- also gave them the option of indicating that the food is “Best before (number) months” from the date of manufacture.

The businesses of course made the most of the slack provisions and the loopholes in the rules. They not only separated the two components of the shelf life information, but also tried their best to conceal the second part of the information by either printing it in minute letters or by hiding it in an obscure corner of the package. Additionally, instead of printing the dates in numerals, most of them chose the “Best before (number) months” from the date of manufacture option.

Thus, the rule makers and the businesses together complicated a simple requirement of law . With this format, they denied the crucial shelf life information to all those who could not read English. The rule makers were particularly insensitive to the poor and the illiterate, who were forced to buy only pre-packed edible oil and ground spices because of the prohibition enforced under the PFA Act on their sale in loose form in the 1990s. The ban, meant to prevent adulteration of these commodities, continues under the new law too.

When the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 , a more modern food safety law with a sector regulator , replaced the archaic PFA Act, these lacunae that violated the spirit of the law should have been rectified and consumer rights upheld. But regrettably, the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and labeling) Regulations, 2011, did not bring about the required changes.

Now finally, the new regulations reflect the intent of the law and consumers should ensure that it is enforced strictly without further delay.