No imported liquor this festive season

FSSAI’s labelling stipulation acts as a virtual ban on world brands

Moving away from traditional festival gifts like sweets, cakes and dry fruits, Hyderabadis have found a fresh and innovative concept of gifting beautifully-packed wines, scotches and champagnes to their friends and colleagues. The trend has picked up fast this festive season and, not missing out on this bonanza; wine companies are flooding swanky stores with any number of their stock. But this festival season, especially Dasara and Diwali, there is going to be a shortage of imported liquor.

India may soon have a shortage of Scotch whisky and other liquors, as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has banned the import of these popular liquors to India about 3 months ago. The ban was imposed because of the non-compliance of labelling requirements by the liquor manufacturers. As a result, distributors and importers are seeing huge losses, while consumers find it very difficult to find their favourite liquor in the market. Some liquor importers claim that they have enough stocks to fulfil the demand for now. However, they fear that if this deadlock is not broken soon they would have to contact the manufacturers to comply with the labelling standards.

New guidelines issued by the FSSAI authorities towards the end of last month are threatening to throw foreign liquor bottles off the shelves of retailers across India. According to the new guidelines, except for single ingredient foods, a list of ingredients is to be listed on the label. This applies even to alcoholic beverages, if additives including colour, water, and preservatives are used in their manufacture and are present in the final product. The guidelines further state, "These (ingredients) have to appear in descending order of their composition by weight or volume at the time of its manufacture." This has led to a deadlock, as, according to European manufacturers, almost all liquors have only one ingredient and thus they need not indicate the ingredients on the bottle. For instance, Scotch whisky is produced with fermented grain mixed with water.

The FSSAI rules also state that water can be exempted from being listed as an ingredient. So for Scotch, the water used during the distillation process need not be listed. But water added to bulk Scotch to bring down its alcoholic strength would now be treated as an ingredient, and hence be listed.

“On top of that, since liquor is a state subject, the new labels would have to get approved by state excise authorities as well. Looks like there is no good news for customers," says Manjeet Singh of Madhushala Bar and Restaurant. “But a lack of legitimate imports would fill the market with spurious liquor which will have an impact on the health of an individual.”

Some importers are also claiming that the ingredients list is not the real issue. Diageo India’s managing director Abanti Sankarnarayana says that the authorities are creating unnecessary problems by asking for the name and address separately of the manufacturers, bottlers and distillers, whereas it is common knowledge in the industry that a liquor is manufactured, distilled and bottled by the same company, unless it is stated otherwise.

“The festival season is already on and with Dasara, Diwali and Christmas ahead, we usually see a spurt in sales, but this ban would have a dip in sales,” says Gurumeet of Bagga and Bagga.