No nutritional info on label except energy: FSSAI amends alcohol norms

Alcoholic beverages must not contain any nutritional information on the label except the voluntary declaration of energy content in kcal, according to a new regulation by food regulator FSSAI.

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has come out with 'Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) First Amendment Regulations, 2023', which will come into force on March 1, 2024.

In the amendment, the FSSAI has also defined single malt whiskey and single grain whiskey.

"Alcoholic beverage shall not contain any nutritional information on the label except energy content in kcal. Such declaration related to energy content shall be voluntary," FSSAI said in the regulation.

In Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages) Regulations, 2018, it was stated that alcoholic beverages should not contain any nutritional information on the label.

FSSAI, in its new regulations dated August 21, has said that "single malt whisky is a distillate obtained from fermented mash that uses malted barley without adding any other grain, which is distilled in pot still only and produced in a single distillery."

Single grain whisky is a distillate obtained from a fermented mash that uses malted or unmalted grain, and produced in a single distillery, it added.

"Single grain whisky shall not include single malt whisky and blended malt whisky or blended grain whisky," FSSAI said.

In the 2018 regulation, single malt or single grain whisky was defined as a distillate obtained from fermented mash that uses one particular malted barley or malted grain, respectively, distilled in pot still only, and produced in a single distillery.

Whisky is an alcoholic beverage made by distilling the fermented extract of malted cereal grains such as corn, rye, barley, or using neutral grain spirit or rectified grain spirit, or neutral spirit of agricultural origin, or their mixture.