Labelling versus prohibition: evaluate FSSAI's approach to analogue food products.

FSSAI's draft Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Amendment Regulations, 2026 inserts a clause under Regulation 2.1.1 covering "paneer made of constituents not derived from milk" [1]. The design choice — reserve the dairy name, or ban the product — decides whether consumers gain real protection or only paper protection.

Merits: a naming-led restriction is the sounder instrument

• It targets the actual harm — being misled about nature and composition — rather than the product itself; analogues remain available as a cheaper option for low-income buyers and small eateries [1].
• It mirrors the Codex Alimentarius General Standard for the Use of Dairy Terms (CXS 206-1999), which permits imitation products but denies them dairy names, requiring names such as "imitation cheese" [4]. Codex-aligned rules are also easier to defend in trade disputes.
• FSSAI has already extended this logic beyond packets: its public notice on cheese analogues directs manufacturers and food service establishments that selling analogue as "paneer" is a grave violation [2].

Limits: the rule outruns the enforcement machinery

• Analogue paneer is indistinguishable by inspection; proof needs milk-fat versus vegetable-fat testing. Yet a CAG audit of the FSS Act's implementation found 65 of 72 state food laboratories without NABL accreditation [3] — an unaccredited report is easily contested on appeal.
• The same audit found FSSAI had no database of food business operators and licences issued on incomplete documents in over half the cases checked [3]; sampling then becomes random rather than planned.
• Recruitment regulations remained unframed a decade after the Act, leaving state food safety officers acutely short-staffed [3].
• Much analogue paneer moves loose — sweet-shop counters, restaurant curries — where no label speaks.

Evaluated overall, FSSAI's calibrated middle path is correct in principle: prohibition punishes a lawful cheap food, while labelling alone protects only the packet-buyer. Its worth now depends on execution — accrediting state laboratories, building the operator database, and carrying the naming rule onto the menu card. Done so, the reform advances the consumer's right to information and India's Codex commitments.