MADURAI: No more agony of indecision, no more stale sweets. Thanks to the Food Safety Authority of India’s (FSSAI) recent mandate, stipulating the shopkeepers to display dates of manufacture and expiry on the trays or containers that hold sweets from June 2020. Stating that instances of sale of stale sweets to consumers are being reported, the FSSAI warned that it posed health hazards. According to Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations 2011 the dates of manufacture and the dates of expiry must be clearly mentioned on the labels of pre-packaged sweets.
It has now been decided to make it mandatory to display the dates of manufacture and the dates of expiry on trays or containers that hold sweets meant for sale in loose, with effect from June 2020, informed FSSAI, in a statement on February 24.
It has also mentioned that the food business operators could decide and display the date of expiry of sweets depending upon the nature of the product as well as the local conditions. An indicative list of shelf life of various sweets is available on the FSSAI website, it added. It directed all the Food Safety Commissioners of States and union territories to ensure compliance by all the food business operators dealing in sweets.
President of Madurai District Hotels Association KL Kumar who owns Valarmathi Sweets said the announcement is practically impossible as it requires excessive time, effort and resources to label the trays/containers everyday. The information could be handwritten on the loose packs, Kumar suggested.
Shelf life of sweets
Kalakand and its variants - 1 day
Milk products and Bengali sweets - 2 days
Ladoo and Khoya sweets - 4 days
Sweets with ghee and dry fruits - 7 days
For pre-packaged milk products, the list of ingredient, date of manufacturing and best before should invariably be mentioned
For non-packaged/loose sweets, the container/tray holding the items at the outlet should display best before date