Indore : Here is good news for the proprietary food product manufacturers, asgetting an approval for proprietary food products and nutraceuticals is just a mouse click away.
Easing the process of getting approval for the mandatory food product approval, the FSSAI has launched an online service ‘Food Products Approval System,’ through which any one can get approval for their proprietary food products and health supplements from any where in the country by just login to the FSSAI web portal.
Earlier, the food product manufacturers had to visit the FSSAI office, New Delhi along with their FPA form, along with product approvals and test report given by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration (NABL) lab or to send it via post to them.
The applicants had to visit New Delhi many a times to complete the paper work and to get approvals. But, many of these applicants didn’t get approvals for as long as two years.
With the online services, the applicants can also check the status report of their applications as well.
Explaining about the online process, Senior Food Safety Officer Manish Swami said that initially applicants have to login by signing in after filling his/her application.
“After login into the portal, the applicant has to fill the details of the product along with its ingredient details and also to upload the approval certificate given by NABL Lab,” he said. The Senior Food Safety Officer further said that the applicant has to provide the labeling and registration certificates so that they will not face trouble in further process.
After filling the form, the officials will put the application in front of scientific panel which will take the final decision.
“The fee for per product is Rs 25000 and the applicant can take approval of more than one product with same ingredients on a single time paid fee. FPA is only mandatory for proprietary food products, health supplements, dietaries and nutraceuticals. The traditional food products manufacturers do not have to take such approval,” Swami added. It is to be noted that FSSAI had launched the scheme of FPA in 2012 before that Food Product Adulteration Act was imposed.
The scheme faced many controversies and even a stay of six months by Mumbai High Court finally ended in August.
