The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 — back to Table of Contents
Section 3. Definitions
(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —
- (a) “adulterant” means any material which is or could be used to make food unsafe, sub-standard, misbranded, or containing extraneous matter;
- (b) “advertisement” means any audio or visual publicity, representation or pronouncement made through light, sound, smoke, gas, print, electronic media, internet or website, and includes notices, circulars, labels, wrappers, invoices or other documents;
- (c) “Chairperson” means the Chairperson of the Food Authority;
- (d) “claim” means any representation stating, suggesting or implying that a food has particular qualities relating to its origin, nutritional properties, nature, processing or composition;
- (e) “Commissioner of Food Safety” means the Commissioner appointed under section 30;
- (f) “consumer” means persons and families purchasing and receiving food to meet their personal needs;
- (g) “contaminant” means any substance present in food as a result of production, manufacture, processing, packaging, transport or holding, or of environmental contamination, but excludes insect fragments, rodent hairs and other extraneous matter;
- (h) “Designated Officer” means the officer appointed under section 36;
- (i) “extraneous matter” means matter carried from raw materials, packaging materials or process systems, or otherwise added, which does not render the food unsafe;
- (j) “Food” means any substance intended for human consumption, including primary food, genetically modified or engineered food, infant food, packaged drinking water, alcoholic drink and chewing gum, but excludes animal feed, live animals (unless prepared for human consumption), unharvested plants, drugs and medicinal products, cosmetics, and narcotic or psychotropic substances; the Central Government may notify other articles as food;
- (k) “food additive” means a substance not normally consumed as food or used as a typical ingredient, intentionally added for a technological purpose during manufacture or processing, which becomes or may reasonably be expected to become a component affecting the food’s characteristics, excluding contaminants and nutrition-maintaining substances;
- (l) “Food Analyst” means an analyst appointed under section 45;
- (m) “Food Authority” means the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India established under section 4;
- (n) “food business” means any undertaking, for profit or otherwise, public or private, carrying out manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution or sale of food, import, food services or catering services;
- (o) “food business operator” means the person by whom the food business is carried on or owned, responsible for ensuring compliance with this Act;
- (p) “food laboratory” means a laboratory established by the Central or a State Government or another agency, accredited by NABL or an equivalent body, and recognised by the Food Authority under section 43;
- (q) “food safety” means assurance that food is acceptable for human consumption according to its intended use;
- (r) “food safety audit” means a systematic, functionally independent examination of a manufacturing unit’s food safety measures against food safety objectives and claims;
- (s) “Food Safety Management System” means the adoption of Good Manufacturing Practices, Good Hygienic Practices, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point and other specified practices;
- (t) “Food Safety Officer” means an officer appointed under section 37;
- (u) “hazard” means a biological, chemical or physical agent in, or condition of, food with the potential to cause an adverse health effect;
- (v) “import” means bringing any article of food into India by land, sea or air;
- (w) “improvement notice” means a notice issued under section 32;
- (x) “infant food” and “infant milk substitute” carry the meanings assigned under the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992;
- (y) “ingredient” means any substance, including a food additive, used in manufacturing or preparing food and present in the final product, possibly in modified form;
- (z) “label” means any tag, brand, mark or descriptive matter attached to a food package, including a product insert;
- (za) “licence” means a licence granted under section 31;
- (zb) “local area” means an urban or rural area notified by the Commissioner of Food Safety for the purposes of this Act;
- (zc) “manufacture” means a process or treatment converting ingredients into an article of food, including any incidental or ancillary sub-process;
- (zd) “manufacturer” means a person engaged in manufacturing food for sale, including one who obtains and packs, labels, or only labels food from another;
- (ze) “Member” includes a part-time Member and the Chairperson of the Food Authority;
- (zf) “misbranded food” means food that is falsely or deceptively labelled or advertised, sold under a fictitious manufacturer’s name, sold as an imitation of another food without proper labelling, bears false or misleading statements about ingredients or origin, lacks required declarations of artificial flavouring, colouring or preservatives, lacks required special-dietary-use information, or is not correctly stated on the package within permitted variability;
- (zg) “notification” means a notification published in the Official Gazette;
- (zh) “package” means a pre-packed container — box, bottle, tin, barrel, pouch, sack, bag, wrapper or similar — in which food is packed;
- (zi) “premises” includes any shop, stall, hotel, restaurant, airline service, food canteen, place or vehicle where food is sold, manufactured or stored for sale;
- (zj) “prescribed” means prescribed by Central or State Government rules under this Act;
- (zk) “primary food” means an unprocessed produce of agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, dairying or aquaculture, in the hands of a person other than the farmer or fisherman who produced it;
- (zl) “prohibition order” means an order issued under section 33;
- (zm) “risk” means the probability and severity of an adverse health effect from a food hazard;
- (zn) “risk analysis” means the process comprising risk assessment, risk management and risk communication;
- (zo) “risk assessment” means the scientific process of hazard identification, hazard characterisation, exposure assessment and risk characterisation;
- (zp) “risk communication” means the interactive exchange of information and opinions on risk among assessors, managers, consumers, industry, academia and other interested parties;
- (zq) “risk management” means the policy-evaluation process, distinct from risk assessment, of selecting appropriate prevention and control options in consultation with interested parties;
- (zr) “sale” means sale of food for cash, credit or exchange, wholesale or retail, for consumption, use or analysis, and includes an agreement, offer or exposure for sale and an attempt to sell;
- (zs) “sample” means a sample of food taken under this Act or the rules and regulations made thereunder;
- (zt) “specified by regulations” means specified by regulations made by the Food Authority;
- (zu) “standard” means a standard notified by the Food Authority;
- (zv) “State Government”, for a Union territory, means its Administrator;
- (zw) “substance” includes any natural or artificial matter, solid, liquid, gas or vapour;
- (zx) “sub-standard” means food not meeting specified standards but not so as to render it unsafe;
- (zy) “Tribunal” means the Food Safety Appellate Tribunal established under section 70;
- (zz) “unsafe food” means food whose nature, substance or quality is injurious to health — because of poisonous or deleterious substances, filthy or diseased matter, unhygienic processing, harmful substances, substitution of inferior ingredients, unpermitted additions, abstraction of constituents, deceptive colouring or coating, unauthorised colouring or preservatives, infestation, insanitary preparation or storage, misbranding or sub-standard quality, or excess pesticides and contaminants.
(2) Any reference in this Act to a law not in force in the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall, in relation to that State, be construed as a reference to the corresponding law, if any, in force there.
Note: Clause (ze) was substituted by the Food Safety and Standards (Amendment) Act, 2008. By notification dated 30 October 2019, this Act was extended to the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
