FSSAI Energy Drink Label Ban: the Word Is on Trial, but So Far Only the Process Has Been Judged

A Sting bottle costs 20 rupees. The fight over it, back before the Delhi High Court today, is about two words on its label: “energy drink”. India’s food regulator says those words dupe consumers. The companies say the words are a lawful trade description they have used for years. The court, so far, has agreed with neither side about the words, because it has not ruled on the words at all.

The FSSAI energy drink label ban began on 30 June, when the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India directed makers of high-caffeine beverages to stop using the description. A letter on 17 July told state authorities to enforce it, including through seizures, and gave the companies 90 days to pull the term from labels, marketing and advertising. The regulator’s case, as it put it then, was that India has no notified standard for an “energy drink” category, so the products are caffeinated beverages, and that claims printed alongside the name, that the drinks “vitalise body and mind”, “enhance focus”, “boost energy levels” or “aid in general weakness”, are functional claims a food product may not make.

In March 2024, the same regulator had said something close to the opposite. Its advisory of 28 March that year allowed the term “Energy Drink” on products licensed under food category codes 14.1.4.1 and 14.1.4.2, covering carbonated and non-carbonated water-based flavoured drinks. PepsiCo says its Sting Energy and Adrenaline Rush fall in those categories, and Monster says its products are licensed under 14.1.4.1. Their argument in court is blunt: having clarified the position, the regulator could not turn around and call the same use misbranding, and it did so without any show-cause notice. FSSAI answers that a category code is not a naming permission, and it handed the court minutes of a meeting on 20 July at which, it says, the manufacturers agreed to drop the term from future production. The companies say they accepted the direction only under protest, which is why the minutes, rather than the chemistry, may decide how far this case goes.

Red Bull went first, and won outright. On 29 September, Justice Amit Bansal set aside FSSAI’s order against Red Bull India on the limited ground that the regulator had violated natural justice by giving the company no chance to respond, while leaving the regulator free to pass a fresh order after a show-cause notice and a hearing. The court refused FSSAI’s version of the meeting, that Red Bull had agreed to make the changes within 60 days. Red Bull, which told the court it has used the descriptor in India since 2002, can manufacture and sell with the label while the regulator decides whether to start again properly.

PepsiCo, Monster and Reliance got something narrower. On 6 October, Justice Amit Mahajan stayed FSSAI’s orders against all three, finding they were, in his words as reported, “undisputedly passed at that stage without issuing SCN and without giving an opportunity of hearing”. But the stay came with a line drawn through the factory gate: stock manufactured up to 6 October may be sold, with an account kept of it, while bottlers and contractors may not manufacture further stock carrying the term. One rival manufactures freely. Three rivals sell down inventory they cannot replace.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Justice Sanjay Sharma noticed the difference on 12 October. It declined to grant PepsiCo immediate manufacturing relief, but observed that the single judge had recorded no specific reasons for denying what Red Bull had been given, and directed reasons within a week. Three days later, PepsiCo’s senior advocate Sandeep Sethi told the court that restarting production without the label would be a “long, cumbersome process” because cans had already been bought and printed, that “there will be no goods in the market after a couple of months”, and that the restriction would “play havoc” with the company’s distribution system. The court again declined urgent relief.

“Purposely in order to dupe the consumers, a product is being marketed as a ‘Energy Drink’.” That sentence, from FSSAI’s filing dated 28 October seeking dismissal of the companies’ challenges, is the regulator’s first substantive defence in the case, as reported by Reuters. The filing says India never established standards for an energy drink category, points to high caffeine, sugar and taurine, and calls the concern one “rooted in serious public health risks and consumer deception”. It is a different kind of argument from everything the regulator has said in court before, and it arrives in front of judges who have so far ruled on none of it. Every order to date turned on a missing notice, not on a misleading word.

India’s caffeinated-drink rule sets a band: not less than 145 mg and not more than 300 mg of total caffeine per litre, according to FSSAI’s own published standard. Drinks in that band must declare themselves high in caffeine with the quantity, carry a warning that they are not recommended for children, pregnant and lactating women and people sensitive to caffeine, and advise consumption of not more than 500 ml a day. Those warnings are already on the bottles. What the June direction removes is the word “energy” and the four claims, not the drinks themselves, and no order in the case stops anyone buying what is already on a shelf. Elsewhere the argument runs the other way: England is set to prohibit sales of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s from April 2027, Norway already bans sales to under-16s, and several other countries restrict sales to under-18s.

PepsiCo counted its exposure in court: 492 million bottles and 26 million cans carrying the label in circulation as of 31 July, 518 million units in all. Reliance Consumer, which sells Campa Energy Drink – Gold Boost, counted 168 million cans and 120 million bottles of finished inventory, plus pre-printed packaging for another 400 million cans and 360 million bottles, around 1.05 billion units touched in one form or another. The category behind those numbers is worth about ₹9,500 crore, with Red Bull, Sting, Monster, Campa and Hell spending more than ₹2,000 crore a year between them on marketing, and Euromonitor, cited by Reuters, puts the market at $1.6 billion by 2028, growing 12.6% a year. Sting, launched in 2017, built much of that growth on its 20-rupee plastic bottles, popular among 15- to 19-year-olds and in rural areas, which is also why the Sting energy drink ban lands hardest on the cheapest caffeine in the country.

The people arguing about the bottles on Reddit, on the threads that followed the July notices, are not arguing about the word. “Remember the Maggi ban fiasco. Looks like another Soap Opera. Is Patanjali energy drink launch on the cards? Or perhaps this energy drinks company need to make more political donations,” wrote u/RevolutionaryFig9437 on r/india. “The moment Payment Received notification shows up, all those notices will disappear,” wrote u/Vyakulveda on the same thread. A third voice on that thread backed the health case on its own terms: “Sting was far too much sugar and just outright harmful,” wrote u/Sweaty_Explorer_8441. Set against FSSAI’s “dupe” claim, the first two deny the premise, assuming the notices are about something other than deception; set against the companies’ “trade descriptor” defence, none of the three defends the word at all, and the only voice that backs the health case does so on sugar, not on the descriptor.

Maharashtra, meanwhile, acted on place instead of words. On 3 July, its food and drug administration minister Narhari Zirwal told the state assembly, answering a question from BJP member Vikram Pachpute, that the sale of Sting and other intoxicating substances within 500 metres of schools would be prohibited, with immediate action against violators. The state’s written reply added that vendors inside that radius were already being inspected and sampled under circulars from October 2024 and September 2025. One of the six cans pictured in FSSAI’s own carousel already carries the regulator’s preferred wording: Campa Energy Drink – Gold Boost is shown labelled “CAFFEINATED BEVERAGE”.