FSSAI vs Spices Board of India: What's the Difference?

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is India's national food safety regulator, established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. Its licensing and registration requirements apply broadly to any business manufacturing, processing, storing, distributing or selling food in India — spices included, but not spices specifically. An FSSAI license or registration confirms a business operates under India's national food safety compliance framework, independent of whether that food is exported.

The Spices Board of India is a statutory body under India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry, established under the Spices Board Act, 1986, with a mandate specifically for the export development and promotion of scheduled spices — a defined list of around 50 spice categories. Exporters dealing in these scheduled categories are generally required to hold a Certificate of Registration as Exporter of Spices (CRES) issued by the Board, distinct from any food safety license they may also hold.

Beyond registration, the Spices Board also runs quality-certification and grading programmes and administers Geographical Indication (GI) protections for specific regional spices — Malabar pepper and Alleppey Green Cardamom are commonly cited examples — though GI protection applies to the specific product and region it covers, not to spices generally.

FSSAI answers "is this business compliant with India's food safety framework?" The Spices Board answers "is this exporter formally registered to export this scheduled spice category?" A supplier can reasonably hold one without the other depending on what they actually export and how their business is structured — an FSSAI license doesn't substitute for spice-export registration, and vice versa. If a specific registration matters to your due diligence, ask which one applies to the product you're buying, rather than treating either as a general stand-in for the other.

Both are independently checkable rather than something to take on trust. FSSAI licenses can be verified through the FSSAI's FoSCoS portal using the license number. Spices Board registration status can be confirmed through the Board's official channels using the registration details a supplier should be able to provide on request. As with any registration claim, a supplier's willingness to share a checkable number is itself informative — see our guide on verifying a supplier's export credentials for the broader due-diligence approach this fits into.