The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has penalised edible oil major AWL Agri Business Ltd for manufacturing and selling substandard fortified sunflower oil, the regulator said in a social media post on Friday.
The Ahmedabad-based company, which sells edible oils under the Fortune brand, was found in violation after a sample tested significantly below the prescribed Vitamin D levels.
What did the FSSAI find?
An adjudication order has been passed against AWL Agri Business Ltd's Mangalore unit for manufacturing and marketing a substandard fortified edible oil, specifically Fortune "Fryola" refined sunflower seed oil, the FSSAI said.
Also read: Dabur takes FSSAI to court; fourth company to do so in recent weeks
The one-litre sample was collected from Taj Fort Aguada Resort & Spa in Goa. The primary food laboratory found that the product did not meet standards under the FSS (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2018, with both Vitamin A and Vitamin D levels below the prescribed range, making it substandard under Section 3(1)(zx) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
AWL Agri appealed, and a referral laboratory retest confirmed the Vitamin D shortfall. The Central Licensing Authority then sanctioned prosecution, an adjudication application was filed, and the Adjudicating Officer in Goa passed the final order imposing the penalty. The FSSAI has not disclosed the penalty amount.
The AWL Agri order is the latest in a series of FSSAI actions against food business operators over the past few months, spanning e-commerce platforms, energy drink makers and alcoholic beverage companies.
The most prominent recent case involves Dabur India. On August 4, the FSSAI issued a prohibition order barring Dabur from selling several products, including honey, ghee, apple cider vinegar, virgin coconut oil, sesame oil, coconut water and coconut milk, over "100 per cent" claims such as "100% Natural," "100% Pure," "100% Purity Guaranteed," "100% Organic" that the regulator called unverifiable and misleading. The FSSAI also flagged two Dabur products for using the "Jaivik Bharat" organic logo without valid FSSAI endorsement.
The regulator said this was not a first warning; an earlier notice had already asked Dabur to drop such claims, but the company's corrective action was found unsatisfactory, prompting the stricter order. Dabur has since approached the Delhi High Court against the prohibition order, with the matter heard by a bench led by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya.
FSSAI has separately been pushing manufacturers to drop other absolute claims, including asking beverage makers to remove "100% Fruit Juice" labels from reconstituted juices where added water and concentrates make the claim inaccurate.
Beyond labelling, the regulator's routine surveillance shows the scale of the compliance problem. In Jammu and Kashmir alone, food safety officers launched 718 civil prosecutions in a recent period, with 671 already decided and penalties totalling Rs 84.33 lakh, alongside 21 criminal cases involving unsafe food. A targeted drive on ghee found 12 of 41 samples tested failing quality standards, leading to prohibition orders against those manufacturers.
With inputs from PTI
