CBIC issues Instruction for Authorised Officers w.r.t. Import of Food under FSSAI Act

Under Section 25 read with Section 47 (5) of the Food Safety Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, and Regulation 13 (1) of the FSS (Import) Regulation, 2017, the CBIC issued Instruction No. 2/2022-Customs dated February 2, 2022 for Authorised Officers.

Regarding testing of imported food goods at FSSAI notified laboratories, see Instruction No. 1/2020-Customs dated February 12, 2020. FSSAI has released an updated list of PoEs for food imports in this regard (Annexure-1)

According to the FSSAI, Authorized officers at 157 Points of Entries (PoEs) for food have been informed, with 104 PoEs to be staffed by Customs officials as Authorized officers (AOs) and 53 PoEs to be manned by FSSAI officials.

In addition, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has published a list of Food Testing Laboratories (Annexure-II). Only FSSAI-accredited labs with appropriate NABL certification are allowed to analyse samples of imported food. Only these FSSAI authorised labs would be used for analysis of samples of imported food items, according to customs personnel notified as Authorised Officers at 104 PoEs.

It is recommended that you take whatever steps are necessary to make officers under your jurisdiction aware of the situation. To that end, the foregoing instruction No. 1/2020-Customs, dated February 12, 2020, has been changed.

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