What an Oil Brand's Certifications Actually Mean — and What They Do Not

Every oil brand in India lists certifications. FSSAI, ISO, HACCP, GMP, Halal, sometimes an American acronym in a gold roundel. They appear in a row at the bottom of the page, they look reassuring, and hardly anyone knows what any of them certify.

We hold all of the above. This is an explanation of what each one actually covers, written from the position that a badge you cannot interpret is not a badge that has helped you. It ends with the most important sentence in the article, which is that not one of these certifications says anything about whether the oil was cold pressed.

FSSAI licence — permission to operate, not an award

What it is: a licence from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to manufacture and sell food. Ours is 10724999001232.

What it certifies: that the facility met the FSSAI's requirements for hygiene, premises, water, staff health and record-keeping when it was licensed, and that it remains subject to inspection.

What it does not certify: anything at all about quality, method or grade. Every legal food business in India has one. A brand presenting an FSSAI licence as a distinction is presenting a driving licence as a trophy.

What is genuinely useful: that the number is printed where you can read it, and that you can verify it yourself on the FSSAI portal. A licence number you can check beats a logo you cannot.

ISO 22000:2018 — a food safety system

What it certifies: that we operate a documented food safety management system, that hazards have been identified at each step, that controls exist for them, and that an external auditor came and confirmed we actually follow our own documents.

What it does not certify: that the food is good. ISO 22000 is a statement about process discipline, not about the product. A factory making an indifferent oil safely and consistently passes the same audit we do.

Why it still matters: consistency is most of what goes wrong in small-batch food production. The audit is the reason a batch pressed in March behaves like a batch pressed in October.

ISO 9001:2015 — consistency, at whatever level you set

What it certifies: a quality management system — that we define our standards, measure against them, record deviations and correct them.

What it does not certify: how high those standards are. This is the most commonly misread badge on any Indian food page. ISO 9001 says a company does reliably what it says it does. It does not say what it says it does is worth doing.

HACCP and GMP — the fundamentals underneath

HACCP is Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points: identify where in the process something could go wrong, decide the control, monitor it, record it. GMP is Good Manufacturing Practice — the baseline of how a food facility is run, from the flooring to the hand-washing.

Both are largely contained within ISO 22000. Listing all three is normal in the industry and slightly redundant, and we would rather tell you that than let a longer row of logos do work it has not earned.

Halal — permissibility, not quality

What it certifies: that the product and the process comply with Islamic dietary law, which matters a great deal to a large number of customers and matters commercially for the GCC markets we ship to.

What it does not certify: anything about purity, method or nutrition, despite how the badge is often used. It answers a specific religious question, accurately, and nothing else.

USFDA registration — the one that gets misrepresented most

This deserves its own section, because a great many Indian exporters describe it dishonestly and the honest version is less impressive.

What it is: our facility is registered with the United States Food and Drug Administration, which is a mandatory filing for any facility exporting food to the United States.

What it is not: an approval, a certification, an endorsement, or a quality assessment. The FDA registers food facilities. It does not certify or approve them. The agency says so itself, and it explicitly prohibits companies from suggesting registration means FDA approval.

So when you see "FDA Approved" or "FDA Certified" on an Indian food brand's page — and you will see it often — that is a claim the FDA does not permit anyone to make. We are FDA registered. It means we did the paperwork required to export. That is all it means, and we are not going to dress it up.

The lab report — the only one that is about your actual bottle

Every certification above is about the facility. None of them is about the oil in your hand.

The batch lab report is the only document in this article that describes the specific oil you bought. Ours is published for every batch, and the batch number is on the bottle so you can match them.

That is the document to ask any brand for. Not the certificate in the frame — the report, for the batch, with the number. It is the difference between saying and showing, and it is the one thing that is genuinely expensive to fake.

Now the important part: none of this certifies "cold pressed"

Read back through the list. FSSAI licenses the premises. ISO 22000 audits the safety system. ISO 9001 audits consistency. HACCP maps hazards. GMP governs housekeeping. Halal answers a religious question. FDA registration is a filing.

Not one of them examines how the seed was pressed.

A facility running fast, hot screw expellers can hold every certification on this page in good standing, and be entirely entitled to. The certifications are real and worth having — they are why the oil is safe, clean and consistent. They simply do not answer the question you came to the category to ask.

What answers it is duller and more useful: the speed of the press, the temperature the oil reached, the length of the ingredient list, the shelf life the maker is willing to accept, and the batch report. We press slow in wooden ghaanis at our press house in Changodar outside Ahmedabad, bottle single-ingredient and unrefined, accept a four-to-six-month life because there is no preservative in it, and publish the report every time.

Judge us on those. Judge everyone on those. The logos are table stakes.

The short version: FSSAI is a licence every food business must hold. ISO 22000 and ISO 9001 certify systems and consistency, not quality level. Halal answers a religious question. USFDA registration is a filing, not an approval, whatever anyone's homepage says. And none of the seven certifications on this page says a single word about whether the oil was cold pressed — only the batch lab report and the behaviour of the oil itself can tell you that.

Our full range is pressed slow in wooden ghaanis, bottled unrefined with one ingredient, batch-numbered and lab-tested. FSSAI licence 10724999001232, ISO 9001:2015, ISO 22000:2018, GMP, HACCP and Halal certified, pressed in a USFDA-registered facility. We ship across India and to 125+ countries — contact us for an international order.