At a packing-material shop in the Parade market, I asked for aluminium foil marked IS 15392, the Indian Standard mandated for bare foil that touches food. 

The rolls shown to me had none of these details: no standard number, batch number or packing date. 

I insisted, and the vendor had nothing to produce. 

The 1 kg pack was marked at Rs 860, but he quoted Rs 500. With a little bargaining, he made clear, the price could come down to Rs 400.

A price that drops by more than half after a minute of haggling makes you wonder how cheaply the product was made.

At a large store in Gandhi Nagar, the foil displayed IS 15392 on its pack. Both packs gleamed, and only one named a standard.

The law leaves little room for doubt. The Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations, 2018, and FSSAI’s compendium, Version-V of 2 April 2025, demand food-grade material for anything touching food. 

For bare aluminium foil that means IS 15392:2003, with conformity certificates from NABL-accredited laboratories. 

Unmarked rolls and cheap foil envelopes nonetheless sell openly, and the kitchens buying them fill them with tikkas, parathas, biryanis and curries, steaming, oily and acidic, from Jammu and Srinagar to Anantnag, Baramulla and Kathua. 

Hotels, dhabas and cloud kitchens seldom ask whether the sheet was ever meant for such........

© Kashmir Observer