Chemco secures FSSAI approval for food-grade rPET resin production
Chemco received regulatory clearance to manufacture recycled polyethylene terephthalate resin for direct food-contact applications at its newly established facility in Gujarat.
05 Jun 2026 | 60 Views | By Anand Singh
Chemco Group obtained official authorisation from FSSAI to manufacture food-grade rPET resin. The clearance, granted under the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations 2018, permits the company to supply recycled substrates for direct food-contact packaging applications within the domestic market.
The regulatory milestone followed the commissioning of the company's bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in Sanand, Gujarat, which required an investment of approximately INR 125-crore. The processing site was engineered to recycle more than one billion post-consumer PET bottles annually, transforming washed flakes into food-grade pellets.
The extrusion line integrated a Starlinger recycling system, which met the safety parameters enforced by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the US FDA, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Vaibhav Saraogi, director of Chemco Group, said, "Receiving FSSAI authorisation for food-grade rPET is an important milestone not only for Chemco, but also for the broader development of circular packaging infrastructure in India".
Saraogi added that the investment in bottle-to-bottle processing aimed to secure long-term supply chain reliability for brand owners as regulatory mandates tighten. The approval coincided with escalating statutory targets under the domestic Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Rules.
For Category I rigid plastic packaging configurations, the government prescribed a minimum recycled-content threshold of 40% for FY 2027, escalating to 50% for FY 2028, and reaching 60% from FY 2029 onwards. By linking resin conversion with downstream conversion lines, the integrated infrastructure provided complete batch traceability and chemical purity verification for FMCG brands.