Centre plans to restrict margarine in edible items, boost manufacture of butter instead

The use of the 'margarine', an emulsion of edible vegetable oil, water, and not having less than 80% of fat, has increased immensely in hotels, restaurants, and the places where edibles are prepared and served. This is affecting adversely the health of the people and the sale of the butter made from the cow milk, fetching financial loss to the farmers. The government needs to have control over the sale of margarine, demanded Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.

Gadkari, the current Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Minister of Shipping and the Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, had recently written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the matter.

Taking immediate cognizance of the demand, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) directed the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) which immediately issued a clarification, directives, and future courses of action to control the use of the margarine in edible items.

The butter made from cow milk is nourishing for health whereas the margarine has a negative impact on human health due to the presence of the huge trans fat in it. 

Besides, being cheap, margarine is used as a substitute for butter, which has a negative impact on the dairy farmers and the milk collection has been affected unfavorably. 

FSSAI has clarified that limit of trans fats is fixed at not more than 5% in bakery and industrial Margarine. The process is on for reducing the limit of Trans Fats in edible oils and fats not more than 3% by 2021 and not more than 2% by 2022. It has been made mandatory to declare the number of Trans Fats and Saturated Fats on the labels of the margarine products where Margarine is used. 

In order to prevent any possibility of manufacturers of dairy analogs, including margarine, to mislead the consumers, FSSAI is amending the FSS (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011 by including a specific definition for dairy analog as margarine is also a dairy analog and specifying the additional labeling criterion for such products.

The name of the product shall be clear as regards to the true nature of the product, dairy term, or phonetically similar or spell alike terms shall not be used in the nomenclature of the product and a declaration "This Is Not A Dairy Product" shall be made on the label. Along with this, a provision is being introduced for use of a specific logo exclusively on the label of dairy product (e.g. Butter) to differentiate the same from dairy analog.

The use of the Margarine and other dairy analogs in prepared food and serving such products at eating places or take - away joints without knowledge of the customers is a challenge as the product packaging (label) is removed from the product before use or serving. To address the challenge the FSSAI is also working and exploring the options to ensure the consumers. 

The restaurants and other eating joints must declare the use of dairy analog, an enforcement drive to check for non-compliance by restaurants will be held, eating joints will be asked to inform the consumers about the use of dairy analogs in prepared food, creating awareness through guidance documents / FAQS, some other specific compositional, labeling requirements which may help consumers to differentiate between butter and Margarine will be taken in. 

The initiative of Nitin Gadkari and immediate intervention by PMO will give respite to the consumers, save from health hazards and will increase the use of the butter made from cow milk helping the farmers as the procurement of the milk will increase for manufacturing the Butter and its use instead of Margarine as its use is going to be restricted in an upcoming couple of years.