Key Points
- Food regulator classifies Nestlé low-fat dairy whitener sample as unsafe and substandard
- Nestlé says product is safe and complies with limits for added phosphorus
- Finding comes weeks after India launched action over Nestlé infant food products
ISLAMABAD: India’s food safety regulator has declared a sample of Nestlé India’s low-fat dairy whitener unsafe and substandard, ordering a New Delhi hotel to stop selling the identified product after laboratory testing found it non-compliant with food safety rules.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said it collected the sample from Bharat Hotels Limited’s premises, which operates The Lalit hotel in New Delhi’s Connaught Place.
The regulator said a food analyst’s laboratory report found the sample non-compliant under India’s Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
After providing the hotel operators with a copy of the analysis for necessary action, the Indian food authority was permitted to appeal against the findings.
FSSAI also prohibitted the hotel from selling the identified product.
Nestlé disputes finding
Nestlé rejected any suggestion that its product was unsafe, saying its Low Fat Dairy Whitener is safe to consume and complies with all applicable regulatory requirements.
The company said it challenged the regulator’s laboratory procedure to assess phosphorus in the laboratory report.
According to Nestlé, phosphorus occurs naturally in milk and milk-based ingredients. It said the FSSAI laboratory assessment measured total phosphorus against the limit on added phosphorus without accounting for the naturally occurring phosphorus present in milk-based products.
Nestlé said its product complies with the prescribed limits for added phosphorus under the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, including on an “as consumed” basis.
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The company said it was engaging with the authorities through the regulatory process and had provided data on similar milk-based products to determine naturally occurring phosphorus.
FSSAI has not publicly specified the laboratory parameters that led to the “unsafe” and “substandard” classifications, according to reports on the case.
Scrutiny of Nestlé products
The latest finding surfaced only weeks after FSSAI initiated action involving Nestlé India’s infant nutrition products.
In September, the regulator said laboratory testing had found a Nestlé follow-up formula to be substandard because of inadequate biotin, or vitamin B7, content.
A second analysis by a referral laboratory also found the sample did not meet the prescribed biotin requirement.
FSSAI also initiated adjudication proceedings involving Nestlé products NAN Excella Pro Stage 1 and Lactogen Pro 1 over regulatory issues concerning promotional and labelling claims.
Nestlé has maintained that the products under scrutiny comply with applicable regulations and said that an FSSAI expert committee had approved some of its labels previously.
The latest dairy-whitener case does not by itself establish a safety problem across Nestlé’s product range. The regulatory finding concerns a specific sample collected from a hotel, while the company disputes the interpretation of the laboratory analysis.
Nestlé is one of India’s largest packaged-food companies, making the regulatory scrutiny significant for the company as it operates in one of its key growth markets.
Food safety enforcement has also become an increasingly important issue for the country’s large packaged-food industry as regulators expand testing and enforcement of standards covering nutrition, labelling and product composition.
Nestlé and Indian authorities remain engaged in the latest case, while the hotel operator has the right to challenge the laboratory finding under the applicable food safety law.
India has faced recurring food-safety problems involving packaged foods, spices, supplements and other processed products, with Indian-origin consignments also appearing in international safety alerts.
EU monitoring has recorded Indian products containing substances such as ethylene oxide and unauthorised dyes, while Indian authorities themselves regularly order recalls of non-compliant packaged foods.
