By Our Staff

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has signed an agreement with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to safeguard consumers against misleading claims in food and beverage (F&B) advertisements. The agreement was signed in the presence of Arun Singhal, CEO, FSSAI, and Bejon Misra, Adviser, Public Affairs, ASCI, on July 1.

As per the agreement, ASCI will identify advertisements which prima facie violate provisions of Food Safety And Standards (Advertising And Claims) Regulations, 2018, and FSSAI would further investigate these. Under the agreement, ASCI will set up a three-member expert panel to evaluate F&B advertising identified by the ASCI monitoring team.

Said Manisha Kapoor, Secretary-General, ASCI: “With this agreement, ASCI will intensify its scrutiny of the F&B sector. We will tap our National Advertising Monitoring Service, which monitors over 900 TV channels and publications, and over 3,000 websites. Besides national brands, we will examine regional and local ones. Our experts, with decades of experience in the F&B sector, will shortlist those advertisements that require further scrutiny by FSSAI.”
Added Subhash Kamath, Chairman, ASCI: “This is a significant collaboration. The common goal of consumer protection drives us all to share skills, expertise and resources in the most effective way to curb the menace of misleading advertising.”