Think Your FSSAI-Approved Supplement Is Safe? These 2 Marketing Tricks Say Otherwise

Key Takeaways

• FSSAI licence number does not mean safety approval. It confirms business registration only, not verified health claims.

• "Lab tested" or "NABL certified" alone may not mean anything. Without a named lab and a checkable report, treat the claim as unverified.

• FSSAI penalised misleading claims in 2025-26. Show-cause notices and fines up to Rs 10 lakh per offence under the FSS Act.

• Real proof looks specific. A named, NABL-accredited lab plus a batch-level Certificate of Analysis you can verify online.

• Check the disclaimer. Health supplements must state they don't diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease; missing this is a red flag.

In any wellness aisle in India, or five minutes of Instagram scrolling, one can find a bottle promising immunity, glowing skin, or "doctor-recommended" gut health solution.

Many of these products comply with Indian regulations, but some packaging is designed to make a supplement appear safer or more thoroughly tested than it actually is.

Two marketing tactics are especially common: treating an FSSAI licence as proof of safety and using vague "lab tested" claims that consumers cannot verify.

These patterns also appear on Indian labels, and FSSAI has stepped up enforcement against misleading or unauthorised claims on food and supplement packaging in recent years.

Here's how to identify misleading supplement claims before you buy.

Trick 1: Mistaking a Licence Number for a Safety Verdict

Every legally sold food or supplement product in India must display a 14-digit FSSAI licence number under the FSS (Health Supplements, Nutraceuticals, Food for Special Dietary Use, Functional Food, Novel Food and Food Fortification) Regulations, 2022.

Brands know that consumers associate this number, and the FSSAI logo next to it, with government-verified safety.

In reality, the licence confirms that a manufacturing facility or marketer has registered with the authority and met basic premises, hygiene, and documentation requirements.

For most standard food products, no one from FSSAI has independently tested that specific bottle's ingredients, dosage, or health claims before it reached the shelf.

There is a narrower category where FSSAI does require product-specific pre-market approval: supplements containing new ingredients not on the permitted list, or those carrying disease-risk-reduction claims, must clear individual product approval before sale. But this stricter tier is the exception, not the rule, and the licence number alone on a label cannot tell a shopper which tier applies.

A brand that prints its licence number in large type beside words like "certified" or "verified safe" is borrowing the authority's credibility for a claim the authority never made.

Trick 2: "Lab Tested" Claims That No One Can Actually Check

India has a genuine version of this safeguard. The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accredits labs to ISO/IEC 17025 standards, and FSSAI separately notifies specific NABL-accredited labs to issue reports for product registration and enforcement sampling under the FSS Act.

A brand that has genuinely conducted independent testing can name the laboratory and cite its NABL accreditation details. It can also provide a batch-specific Certificate of Analysis showing active ingredient assay, heavy metal testing, and microbial safety results. Consumers can verify the laboratory's accreditation through NABL's public database and, where available, compare the certificate with the product batch.

Nothing stops a brand from printing the same claims without providing evidence that consumers can independently verify. This failure mode is documented abroad too: some "labs" issue a report without ever testing the sample, or alter results to fit what the client is paying for.

That risk exists anywhere testing is self-declared rather than named and verifiable.

A vague "lab tested" sticker with no lab, no number, and no report to check is doing the same job as an unqualified "100% natural" claim: marketing, not safety.

Can We Trust the FSSAI Label?

None of this means every supplement on an Indian shelf is unsafe. It means an FSSAI licence number and an unattributed "tested" claim are both doing far less regulatory work than they appear to.

Under the FSS Act, penalties for misleading advertisements can reach Rs 10 lakh per offence, and liability extends to brand owners and even advertisement publishers, not just the manufacturer.

FSSAI's own June 2026 enforcement drive against several food and supplement brands for unauthorised or undefined claims (formal show-cause notices, meaning the brands were legally required to justify their labelling or face fines and possible product recall), and its May 2025 advisory banning unqualified "100%" claims such as "100% pure" or "100% natural," show the same underlying pattern the regulator is trying to close: language that implies verification without earning it.

Indian rules still allow a middle ground: a health supplement can carry a structure-function claim, a statement describing how an ingredient supports a normal body process, such as "supports immunity" or "helps maintain bone health", without needing pre-market approval, provided it stops short of claiming to treat or cure a disease.

Health supplements sold in India are also required to carry a specific disclaimer, that the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. If that line is missing from a bottle making bold immunity or metabolic claims, that omission itself is a red flag.

Myths vs. Facts

Conclusion

An FSSAI licence number and an unattributed "lab tested" sticker are doing marketing work, not safety work. The regulator has been increasingly active through 2025 and 2026 in calling out this gap between packaging language and verified claims. Reading the ingredient list, looking for a named and verifiable accredited lab behind any testing claim, checking for the mandatory disease-claim disclaimer, and treating bold promises with the same scrutiny you would apply to an unfamiliar medicine remain the most reliable consumer safeguards.

References

1. Boindala, S., and J. I. Lewis. "The Grand Challenge of Regulating Health Foods in India." Indian Journal of Medical Research 150, no. 3 (September 2019): 248–253. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijmr.IJMR_1719_18.

2. FSSAI. List of FSSAI-notified NABL-accredited food testing laboratories. https://www.fssai.gov.in/upload/advisories/2025/02/67a45f616850cValidity%20Order%20dated%2006022025.pdf

3. National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). Laboratory search tool (for verifying lab accreditation). https://nablwp.qci.org.in/laboratorysearchone