IN Brief:
- Bonn Biscuits, Emami, Apis India, Amway India, Juza Foods, and MasterChow Foods have taken corrective action.
- FSSAI says “100%” is undefined under the relevant food-claims framework and can imply unsupported purity or superiority.
- Changes affect packaging artwork, existing printed stock, promotional material, websites, and label-control systems across several food categories.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has stepped up enforcement against “100%” claims on food products and advertising, with six businesses removing or amending wording following regulatory intervention. The action turns a long-standing question around marketing language into a practical packaging and artwork-control issue for manufacturers.
The companies identified by FSSAI are Bonn Biscuits, Emami, Apis India, Amway India Enterprises, Juza Foods, and MasterChow Foods. Corrective action has covered labels, packaging, websites, product names, and promotional material depending on the individual case.
Amway had used “100% Pure Coconut Oil” in the name of one of its products. Following intervention, the company told the regulator that it had voluntarily removed the wording from packaging and promotional material and discontinued old stock carrying the claim from sales channels.
Emami and Apis India acted over “100%” honey claims, while Bonn Biscuits removed wording associated with advertising for its Cummin Flavor Jeera Bite biscuits. Juza Foods removed similar claims from baby-food products, and MasterChow Foods withdrew them from a ramen-noodle product.
The enforcement follows FSSAI’s May 2025 advisory asking food businesses to avoid “100%” terminology on labels, packaging, and promotions. The regulator’s position is that the term is not defined in the Food Safety and Standards Act or the relevant Advertising and Claims Regulations and can create an unsupported impression of absolute purity or superiority.
For a manufacturer, responding to that interpretation is more involved than changing a marketing sentence. Packaging artwork is normally managed through controlled specifications linking text, ingredients, nutrition information, statutory declarations, barcodes, pack dimensions, print standards, and product codes.
Removing a front-of-pack claim therefore creates a new artwork revision that has to move through technical, regulatory, marketing, procurement, and supplier approval before the converter prints it. Proofs need to be checked, version numbers updated, obsolete artwork withdrawn, and production systems told when the replacement becomes effective.
Existing packaging stock then becomes a separate decision. Printed film, labels, cartons, sleeves, or pouches can represent significant working capital, particularly for high-volume food products. If regulators do not permit the old claim to continue through a normal stock-exhaustion period, businesses may need to destroy material, rework it, over-label it, or manage a controlled run-out.
Amway’s confirmation that old stock was removed from sales channels demonstrates how quickly that issue can move beyond the packaging supplier. Finished goods carrying superseded artwork can already be sitting in warehouses, with distributors, or in retail inventories when a compliance change is agreed.
The six cases also span very different food technologies. Coconut oil, honey, biscuits, baby foods, and noodles share little from a processing perspective, but the same label-governance systems sit between each production line and the market.
That is why absolute claims can become a manufacturing concern. A packaging line cannot distinguish between wording that marketing still likes and wording that regulatory teams have withdrawn; it simply consumes whatever approved material has been released to production. Robust change control is required to prevent obsolete rolls or cartons from returning to a line after the new version has gone live.
FSSAI’s original advisory said claims must be truthful, unambiguous, meaningful, and not misleading. It also warned that “100%” terminology could imply that competing compliant products are somehow inferior, even where the claimant intended only to emphasise an ingredient or product characteristic.
The regulator has since moved from general guidance towards individual interventions. That raises the likelihood that other businesses will review artwork before receiving a notice, particularly where “100% pure”, “100% natural”, or similar language appears prominently on established brands.
Manufacturers operating several pack sizes face additional complexity. The same product can have separate artwork for jars, pouches, sachets, multipacks, e-commerce packs, export versions, and promotional formats. Removing one claim consistently may involve dozens of controlled files rather than a single label.
Digital material has to change alongside the physical pack. FSSAI’s action has included websites and advertising, meaning compliance teams need alignment between production artwork and the images and descriptions shown through online retail channels.
Packaging converters are pulled into that process because they need clear release dates and unequivocal version control. Printing a superseded design after a regulatory change can create finished goods that a manufacturer cannot legally or commercially use, even though the packaging material itself has been produced correctly to the supplied specification.
The latest cases are therefore less about whether a particular jar of honey or packet of noodles contains exactly what its maker intended and more about how absolute language is interpreted. FSSAI has decided that the phrase itself can be misleading within the current claims framework.
Six businesses have now acted, giving other manufacturers a practical indication that the 2025 advisory is being enforced rather than left as general guidance. The immediate consequence will be another round of packaging revisions; the longer-term effect is likely to be more conservative approval of absolute claims before artwork ever reaches a printer.
