India's Food Regulator Files Three Legal Cases Against Nestle Over Baby Formula Claims and Vitamin Levels

India's Food Safety and Standards Authority filed three separate legal cases against Nestle India on Friday, September 18, over its infant nutrition products, according to Business Standard and the Times of India. Two cases involve marketing claims on baby formula. The third involves a lab test that found a Nestle follow-up formula came up short on a required vitamin.

FSSAI announced the action in an Instagram post: "Legal action initiated against Nestle India Ltd over several non-compliances pertaining to the FSS Act," the regulator said, adding it "remains committed to strengthening the food safety ecosystem through its enforcement actions," as reported by Business Standard.

What FSSAI actually found

The regulator examined three products and their promotional material on e-commerce platforms, according to the Tribune India and Rediff. For NAN Excella Pro Stage 1, FSSAI flagged claims about "5 HMOs" (human milk oligosaccharides) and "whey protein." For Lactogen Pro 1, it flagged a claim that the whey protein was "easy to digest."

FSSAI says both claims violate Regulation 4(2) of the Food Safety and Standards (Foods for Infant Nutrition) Regulations, 2020, which restricts promotional material designed to boost sales of infant foods. The regulator also cited Section 3 of the 1992 Infant Milk Substitutes Act, which bars advertising or promotion of these products outright, according to the Times of India.

The third case is separate. A sample of Nestle's follow-up formula came back substandard for biotin, also known as vitamin B7, during lab analysis, FSSAI said. Nestle got a re-analysis. The referral lab found the same problem: the sample didn't meet the biotin levels required under the 2020 regulations, according to the Straits Times and India Today.

Nestle's defense

Nestle India didn't back down. "Our products are fully compliant with all the applicable regulations," a company spokesperson said, according to the Times of India and Business Standard. "The said products and their labels were approved by the expert committee of FSSAI."

The company says it resubmitted a detailed response defending the label claims as "factual in nature, and supported by scientific literature," and pledged to "continue to work closely and support FSSAI in its efforts towards consumer awareness."

Nestle has a legitimate argument here: if FSSAI's own expert committee signed off on these labels before they hit shelves, the company followed the process the regulator itself set up. Whether that approval covered the specific promotional wording now in dispute, or just the core label, isn't spelled out in the adjudication notice as reported by any of these outlets.

What this process actually is

India Today's coverage makes an important distinction other outlets gloss over: this is an adjudication process, not a finding of guilt. The three cases will be examined by the relevant authority before any final consequences are determined. FSSAI has not ordered a recall of any product, the Straits Times reported. No criminal charges have been filed.

Money and market reaction

The stakes for Nestle are real. Milk and nutrition products, including infant formula, were Nestle India's single biggest revenue category for the fiscal year ending March 2026, generating roughly $2.4 billion, about a third of the company's total product sales, according to the Straits Times.

Nestle India's stock dropped about 4% from its intraday high after the FSSAI notice, Business Standard reported. The Straits Times put the decline at nearly 3%. Either way, investors reacted to the regulatory action, not to any confirmed product recall or safety finding.

The bigger pattern

This isn't Nestle's first run-in with Indian food regulators. In 2015, authorities banned Nestle's Maggi noodles over allegations of excess lead and labeling violations, a case that triggered a nationwide product recall before Nestle eventually returned Maggi to shelves. The Straits Times frames the current action as part of a broader crackdown on India's roughly $100 billion food industry, which has included surprise factory inspections and expanded product testing.

Separately, and unrelated to the FSSAI matter, Nestle also disclosed this month that the Kremlin moved to seize its Russian assets, placing them under the control of a domestic firm called L.E.V Management, according to CNN. Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described Nestle as one of several "European companies from unfriendly countries" targeted by the decree. That action stems from Russia's ongoing seizure campaign against Western companies tied to the Ukraine war and has nothing to do with India's biotin findings or marketing claims. The two stories simply landed in the same news cycle.

What happens next

FSSAI hasn't set a timeline for resolving the three adjudication cases, and none of the available reporting indicates when a ruling might come. Parents shopping for NAN Excella Pro Stage 1, Lactogen Pro 1, or Nestle's follow-up formula won't get a final answer on the labeling dispute or the biotin finding until the adjudication process runs its course. An open adjudication notice isn't proof a product is unsafe, but anyone changing an infant's formula should still talk to a pediatrician first.