India’s food regulator has proposed preventing non-milk-derived analogue products from being marketed as paneer. In an announcement on September 24, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India described a draft amendment intended to make product names and labels reflect what consumers are buying.
If adopted, the proposal would require products licensed or registered in the dairy-analogue category to stop using the paneer name in their product descriptions, labels and marketing. The draft targets the presentation of those products as paneer; its announcement does not establish a new prohibition already in force.
The regulator has invited public objections and suggestions. It says the draft will be considered after sixty days from the date the relevant Gazette copies are made available to the public. That consultation period is not an announced enforcement date. For consumers and food businesses, the distinction matters: a proposed labelling change and a final, operative regulation are different stages of the process.