How to check an FSSAI licence number before you buy
Every packaged supplement in India carries a 14 digit FSSAI number. How to read it, where to verify it, and what a licence does not tell you.
Sujoy Chakraborty
Every packaged food and supplement sold legally in India carries a 14 digit FSSAI licence number. It is usually small, often near the manufacturer address, and it is the fastest check you can run on a brand you have not bought before.
What an FSSAI licence number is
FSSAI is the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Any business that makes, packs, stores, imports or sells food has to be registered with it. Supplements fall under this, not under drug regulation, which is a distinction worth holding on to.
The number identifies the specific business and the specific premises. A brand that manufactures in one place and sells from another may show more than one. The licence on the pack should belong to whoever made or packed what is inside it.
How to read the 14 digits of an FSSAI number
The 14 digits are not random. The first digit tells you the licence type: 1 for a central licence, 2 for a state licence. Central licences are required for larger operations, importers and exporters. The next two digits are the year of issue. The following two are the state code. The rest identify the business.
You do not need to memorise this. It is enough to know the number carries structure, which means a made up string is easy to catch.
How to verify an FSSAI licence on FOSCOS
Go to the FSSAI Food Safety Compliance System, foscos.fssai.gov.in, and use the licence search. Enter the 14 digit number. A valid licence returns the business name, the address, the licence category and the validity dates.
Four things are worth comparing when the record loads.
- The name. Does the registered business match the brand, or at least a company the brand names on its site? A mismatch is not automatically a problem, since many brands use contract manufacturers, but you should be able to find the connection stated somewhere.
- The address. Does the state code in the number match the address printed on the pack?
- The validity dates. Licences expire. An expired licence on current stock is a real flag.
- The category. A licence issued for one kind of food business does not cover another.
What an FSSAI licence does not guarantee
This is where most articles on the subject oversell it.
An FSSAI licence means the business is registered, the premises have been declared, and the operation is subject to inspection and to the labelling rules. That is meaningful. It is the difference between a regulated food business and someone blending powder in a back room.
It does not mean the product has been tested by FSSAI. It does not mean the ingredient amounts on the label have been verified. It does not mean anyone has checked whether the formula does what the marketing says. Supplements in India are regulated as food, not as medicine, and the bar for a food licence is a bar for safety and process rather than for proven benefit.
So the licence is a floor, not a recommendation. A product can be fully compliant and still be a proprietary blend of cheap filler with a good story on the front.
GMP certification and batch test reports
Because the licence only tells you so much, it is worth pairing with two others.
GMP certification
Good Manufacturing Practice covers how a site actually runs: cleaning, batch records, staff hygiene, equipment. It is a separate certification from the licence and a stronger signal about the place your powder was blended in.
Heavy metal and microbial testing
Heavy metals and microbial limits are the two tests that matter most for plant powders, because both come from the raw material and the soil it grew in. A brand that tests per batch will have a report per batch. A brand that tested once, two years ago, will send you that.
A four step FSSAI check before you buy
- Find the 14 digit number on the pack or the product page.
- Search it on foscos.fssai.gov.in.
- Check the name, address, validity and category against the pack.
- Email the brand and ask for the GMP certificate and the batch report for your lot.
The fourth step is the most revealing, and it takes one email.
SWATVA's FSSAI licence and testing
SWATVA is blended and packed in India in an FSSAI licensed, GMP certified facility, under licence number 10826999000546. It is printed in the footer of every page on this site so you can run the check above without hunting for it. Batch reports cover heavy metals and microbial limits, and we say so plainly rather than implying they cover more.
The label decoder covers the other checks worth running on any supplement, ours included. If you want in on the first run of 55 pouches, the application takes four minutes and asks for no payment.
Every ingredient,
printed in pack order.
Most labels here hide behind a blend name. Daily Greens and Signal print what is in them and how much, in the order it goes into the pouch. If you have read this far, the ledger is the page worth your next four minutes.