Bournvita, other brands to lose 'health drink' status
Bournvita and other beverages should not be called health drinks because the category isn’t defined in the country’s food laws.
“All ecommerce companies/portals are hereby advised to remove drink/beverages including Bournvita from the category of ‘health drinks’ from their sites/portals,” the commerce and industry ministry said in a notification.
Cadbury Bournvita, the country’s most popular malted drink, had found itself in a controversy last year after a social media influencer alleged that the drink has high sugar content.
Mondelez India, which owns Bournvita, sent a legal notice to the influencer, forcing him to take down the video. But the issue snowballed into a controversy, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) asked the brand to withdraw all misleading packaging, advertising, and labels.
Earlier this month, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) instructed ecommerce portals against labelling dairy-based or malt-based beverages as ‘health drinks’.
The latest directive from the commerce and industry ministry has come after an inquiry by NCPCR — a statutory body constituted under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005. It “concluded that there is no ‘health drink’ defined under FSS Act 2006, rules and regulations as submitted by FSSAI and Mondelez India Food Pvt Ltd”, as per the notification dated April 10.
“This might be the effect of the (Baba) Ramdev judgment where Patanjali was named by the court for misleading consumers,” said Santosh
