FSSAI Draft Bars Added Sucrose, Fructose in Infant Foods

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has moved to tighten the limit on sugars in baby food. A draft amendment carried by the Gazette of India on 16 October 2026 would stop manufacturers from putting sucrose and fructose into products meant for infants in the first six months of life. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare made the step public on 17 October 2026.

What the draft changes

The instrument is titled the Food Safety and Standards (Foods for Infant Nutrition) Amendment Regulations, 2026, and it edits the parent Food Safety and Standards (Foods for Infant Nutrition) Regulations, 2020. Those parent rules fix the make-up, the quality and the safety standards of every class of infant food sold for children between birth and the age of twenty-four months. They treat lactose and glucose polymers as the carbohydrates a formulation should lean on, and let sucrose or fructose be added only where a carbohydrate source is genuinely called for, and then only inside prescribed limits. For the youngest group the amendment withdraws even that narrow permission: nothing with added sucrose or added fructose may be sold for an infant below six months.

Why the first six months

The regulator calls the opening six months a decisive window for growth and development, when what a baby is fed has to match the body's needs exactly. Keeping added sugars out is meant to cut the dietary risks that early sweetening carries with it, among them the habits associated with obesity in childhood. The restriction also runs with the standing public-health advice that a baby be breastfed and nothing else for six months, and it pushes manufacturers towards recipes built around what a young infant actually requires.

Consultation and the next step

The notification is only a draft and is open for public consultation. Stakeholders may file objections and suggestions within sixty days of the day copies of the Official Gazette carrying it reach the public. FSSAI will weigh every representation that arrives inside that window before it settles the final text. The authority presents the exercise as part of its science-led approach to food standards, of responsible product formulation, and of the government's wider emphasis on preventive healthcare and the nutrition of children.