Anuj Kumar Verma
Every evening across Jammu and Kashmir, hot tikkas, parathas, biryanis and curries are being wrapped in shiny sheets that look hygienic but may be silently poisoning us. From Jammu and Srinagar to Anantnag, Baramulla and Kathua, hotels, restaurants, dhabas and cloud kitchens routinely pack steaming, oily and acidic food in substandard aluminium foil and foil lined envelopes that carry no ISI mark, no traceable BIS licence, and no proof of conformity to IS 15392:2003, the mandatory Indian Standard for bare aluminium foil used in food packaging.
Under the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations, 2018, and FSSAI’s latest compendium (Version V, 02.04.2025), any material in direct contact with food must be food grade and meet the relevant standard; for bare aluminium foil, that standard is IS 15392, with conformity certificates required from NABL accredited laboratories. Yet unmarked foil rolls and cheap “foil envelopes” are sold openly at cut rate prices, and food vendors use them without ever asking if they are safe for hot, oily, acidic or spicy meals. The author, himself, visited a couple of disposables & packing material shops in busy market area of Parade. I asked for the aluminium foil rolls, but failed to get IS 15392 or any other standards printed on the aluminium foil rolls shown to me. Even batch Number and Packing date was not printed on the pack. I insisted for IS 15392, but the vendors failed to provide me with that. Amazingly, the price printed on the 1 kg pack was Rs. 860 and he offered me to sell it at a price of Rs. 500/-. Had I bargained the price, he could have sold me at a price of Rs. 400/- for 1 kg roll. Then, I visited a big store at Gandhi Nagar, there I could find IS 15392 on the silver foil pack. National enforcement actions also show how widely non compliant foil circulates. A PIB documented BIS raid in May 2024 on a shop in Chembur, Mumbai, found aluminium foil for food packaging being stored and sold without the BIS standard mark, attracting penalties under Section 17(1)(a) of the BIS Act, 2016 that can include imprisonment of up to two years or a minimum fine of ₹2 lakh or both. In 2026, BIS seized around 2,350 aluminium foil rolls from a unit in Mandoli, northeast Delhi, over alleged violations of mandatory certification and ISI mark rules.
Closer home, the Jammu and Kashmir FDA has shown it can act decisively: media reports cite 13,944 routine inspections in 2025, 1,211 food safety cases filed in 2025–26, and 2,733 pending food safety cases across the Territory. If rotten meat and adulterated ghee deserve swift raids, seizures and prosecutions, then packaging that touches our daily meals and may carry uncontrolled impurities must be treated with equal seriousness. A peer reviewed study by researchers associated with Manipal (F1000Research, 2024; eCollection 2022) tested 13 commercially available food and drug packaging samples and found arsenic above permissible limits in all, and vanadium/cadmium above limits in 10, underscoring how unverified packaging can become a direct source of contamination.
What cheap “foil” rolls and envelopes are actually made of-
Many inferior, shiny rolls and foil looking envelopes sold in Indian markets are not bare aluminium foil, but metallised plastic films and multi layer laminates designed to mimic foil at lower cost. Packaging literature describes these as metallised polyester (PET), metallised BOPP or metallised polyamide films, where a vacuum deposited aluminium layer only 30–50 nanometres thick is coated onto a plastic base to give a metallic sheen. Such structures (PET/PE, BOPP/CPP, PET/AL/LDPE, etc.) are common in snacks, confectionery and tea packaging.
The problem is that non food grade variants of these laminates—sometimes printed, bonded with unspecified adhesives—are being cut and sold as “aluminium foil” or “foil envelopes” for direct contact with hot, oily and acidic foods, without meeting IS 15392 or other applicable food contact standards. The Manipal study, which found heavy metals above limits in market packaging, highlights that such unverified, multi material packaging can itself be a source of contamination. Reviews also confirm that aluminium can leach from foil and laminates into acidic and fatty foods, especially at high temperatures.
A 2024 study in Food Bioscience, widely cited in Indian media, found unsafe metal levels in fish roasted with aluminium foil at high temperatures. While aluminium is not a known carcinogen and occasional use may pose limited risk for healthy adults, cumulative exposure matters, particularly for people with kidney disease, and the risk worsens when the foil is not food grade or is a laminate not intended for direct food contact.
The packaging of takeaway or home delivery hot food by hotels, restaurants, dhabas and roadside eateries in substandard aluminium foils or envelopes that merely look like aluminium foil is unhealthy and can be a cause of health hazards for those who eat that food. All such aluminium foils and aluminium foil envelopes used for food contact must conform to IS 15392, which is mandatory under BIS standards and FSSAI packaging regulations. There is an urgent need to launch a crackdown on vendors selling inferior quality aluminium foil or foil like envelopes, and on all food vendors—including hotels, restaurants, dhabas and roadside eateries—who use such material for packing hot, steaming food for takeaway or home delivery.
The Jammu and Kashmir FDA should launch a targeted, time bound crackdown on substandard food contact packaging. First, a supply side sweep: joint FDA–BIS teams should visit wholesale and retail outlets in Jammu, Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Kathua and other hubs, lift samples of foil rolls and envelopes marketed for food use, test them against IS 15392, and check for the mandatory ISI mark and valid BIS licences; sellers found stocking non compliant foil should face seizure, penalties and, where warranted, prosecution.
Second, demand side enforcement: surprise inspections of restaurants, dhabas, tandoor outlets, bakeries and cloud kitchens that pack hot food in foil or foil lined wrappers, with immediate sampling of packaging material and, where violations are found, improvement notices, fines and, in repeat cases, suspension of FSSAI registration.
Third, public assurance: a simple advisory making consumers aware to look for the ISI mark on foil rolls, avoid hot food wrapped in unmarked shiny sheets, and prefer glass or stainless steel takeaways for acidic and oily dishes, backed by a dedicated FDA portal or helpline for reporting suspicious packaging. Jammu and Kashmir has already shown it can move decisively against unsafe food; extending that resolve to the very wrappers that touch our daily meals would protect citizens from a slow, cumulative poisoning that is entirely avoidable if regulators, retailers and restaurants simply do what the law already requires.
(The author is an Environmental Advocate and Policy Writer. He is the Convenor of We The Humans Forum for Nature and Mankind, Jammu, a public charitable trust. Email: [email protected]) |
