New regulations for health supplements bring clarity: IDSA

Indian Direct Selling Association (IDSA) has said the formulation of new standards for health supplements and nutraceuticals by food regulator FSSAI would help bring clarity about the products being sold to consumers and also encourage member companies to launch new products.
Last week, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) operationalised with immediate effect new standards for eight categories of products, including health supplements and nutraceuticals. It will now start granting licences and approve products based on the new standards.
These regulations will be enforced from January 2018.
Welcoming the new standards, IDSA termed it as a crucial step towards food regulatory in the country.

"These regulations have brought much awaited clarity on health supplements, nutraceutical and other products meant for special dietary purposes. This will certainly clear a roadblock for the IDSA member companies offering products of international standards to the Indian consumers," IDSA Secretary General Amit Chadha said in a statement.
"Due to the lack of clarity, our member companies had kept on hold some products that they wanted to introduce in the Indian market," he said, adding that the new norms would bring relief to all IDSA members dealing in these products.

The regulations have given exhaustive list of ingredients which are permissible in health supplements and nutraceutical products, the association said.

"Labelling, thus will become a very important aspect for all the companies. Also, since the regulations have specified type of health claims and labelling requirement for such products, it would benefit the consumers the most as they will be able to make the appropriate choices as per their requirement," said Vivek Katoch, Vice-Chairman of IDSA.
The association's Chairman Jitendra Jagota said that most of its member companies deal in food products, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements.