Reading Between the Words: Demystifying Food Labels, Claims, and Jargon

● Online | 20 FEBRUARY 2026 | 5:30–6:30 pm

LFC x TL Partner Producer Session
Ishka Farms—India’s only caper farm—is located in the dry scrublands of Niravi Pudhupatti village, about 45 kilometres from Tuticorin. Photo by Midhun Das.

“Organic.” “Natural.” “Chemical-free.” “Sustainable.”
We see these words everywhere—on food packets, menus, and Instagram captions. While they are meant to signal trust, care, and ethics, what do they actually mean? And who gets left out of the story when we rely on labels alone?

This session opened up an honest conversation about food labels and the claims they make, moving beyond marketing buzzwords to understand how food is really grown, processed, tested, and sold in India today. Instead of asking consumers to trust—or reject—labels, we asked a more useful question: How should we read them?

About the Session

As interest in “better” food grows, so does the language around it.

Labels and certifications are increasingly shaping how we shop for our food. Many of these terms, however, are loosely defined, inconsistently used, or poorly regulated in the Indian context. At the same time, producers often work within tight ecological, financial, and institutional constraints. This makes formal certification difficult, even when their practices are responsible and transparent.

This session brought producers directly into the room to understand what these labels really mean: What do they communicate? Where do they fall short? And how do producers maintain integrity when labels can’t fully capture the reality of their work?

The session also marked the release of The Locavore’s Guide to Understanding Food and Farming Terminology, which breaks down common food-system language through producer realities rather than marketing claims.

Meet Our Panellists

Fiona Arakal, Co-founder, Ishka Farms

Fiona Arakal is actively involved in social work and volunteers with various NGOs and foundations that focus on issues such as gender rights and value-based treatment for underprivileged children. It is her mix of professional and entrepreneurial experiences, social responsibility, and love for the environment that drives the long-term environmental enrichment and women’s empowerment initiatives at Ishka Farms. 

Ishka Farms offers a ground-level view of farming, experimentation, and product-building—where philosophy, ecology, and practice often outpace available labels or certifications.

Aditya Maruvada, Brand Manager, Safe Harvest

Aditya Maruvada leads branding and research at Safe Harvest, where he has spent close to a decade connecting smallholder FPOs with markets. He holds a Masters in Development Studies with a focus on agrarian and environmental studies.

 

Safe Harvest works at the systemic level to build alternative supply chains, testing regimes, and storage systems that ensure integrity beyond a single label.

Neil Khopkar, Moderator and Partnerships Lead, The Locavore

Trained in culinary arts and business, Neil Khopkar has a wide array of interests ranging from gastronomy, foodways, history, and music. Through The Locavore, Neil aims to draw attention to the deep connection between good eating and sustainable eating.

Notes from the Session

One of the prominent threads that emerged was that while labels matter, they rarely tell the whole story.

Both Fiona Arakal and Aditya Maruvada acknowledged that certifications can signal accountability. At the same time, they often compress deeply complex farming realities into a single word on a package. For many smallholder farmers, certification comes with real costs—time, money, paperwork, and access.

Aditya highlighted the transition to organic farming, explaining that yields often dip during the shift away from synthetic inputs. For a smallholder farmer, committing to lower yields for several years in anticipation of eventual certification is largely economically unviable. Fiona raised another important tension: many farmers who have traditionally grown food without synthetic chemicals are effectively penalised today. To receive formal recognition for practices they have long followed, they must invest in documentation, fees, and administrative processes that weren’t part of their way of working to begin with.

The “Organic” Grey Area

The term ‘organic’ came under particular scrutiny during the discussion.

Fiona described it as a “grey area,” urging consumers to refrain from assuming that the presence of the word alone guarantees quality or integrity. Instead, she suggested treating it as a starting point—a word that invites further questions. What standards are being followed? Who is verifying them? How transparent is the producer?

Residue-Free, Testing, and the Limits of Regulation

Both Fiona and Aditya emphasised that the absence of synthetic chemical residues may be more meaningful than the organic label itself. Safe Harvest, Aditya shared, has advocated for lab testing since its early years—well before India’s Food Safety and Standards (Organic Foods) Regulations, 2017 formalised domestic guidelines.

Yet even here, complexity persists. Terms like “residue-free” and “pesticide-free” are widely used but not consistently regulated. In the absence of a strong enforcement framework, claims can proliferate without adequate oversight.

Traceability and Single Origin

For Fiona, traceability means being able to track a product back to its precise moment of production: what day it was harvested, who cured it, who bottled it, and who signed off on it. Traceability, then, is not a marketing device but a commitment to transparency and accountability.

Single-origin sourcing, too, becomes meaningful when it reflects genuine knowledge of place, process, and people—not simply a storytelling device.

Becoming a More Informed Buyer

Aditya also pointed to claims that deserve scrutiny—particularly sweeping phrases like “100% healthy” or “100% natural.” Current FSSAI guidelines prohibit blanket claims of absolute purity or efficacy, and the usage of terms such as “pure” and “traditional” is tightly defined. The absence of regulation around some terms—and the strict regulation around others—makes careful reading essential.

When asked how consumers can navigate such complexity, both speakers returned to something simple: conversation. 

Wherever possible, speak directly to producers. Ask questions. Seek out organisations that make themselves accessible. Labels can only carry so much meaning; relationships, transparency, and dialogue often reveal far more.

As Fiona noted, it is difficult for a customer standing in the aisle of a grocery store to decode competing claims. But when producers open themselves to questions, a different kind of trust becomes possible—one built not on buzzwords, but on clarity.

This session was part of an ongoing LFC Partner Producer Series, anchored in our first quarterly theme for 2026: Supporting Your Food Producers.

From January to March 2026, the theme looks beyond the plate to the people behind it—farmers, fishers, foragers, millers, bakers, and processors. Through conversations such as this, we hope to explore everyday ways to support food producers through more informed choices, deeper learning, and thoughtful advocacy. 

Join us in Doing Good Through Food, Together. 

For any questions, feel free to reach out to us at connect@localfoodclub.in

Beyond the Plate is an initiative by The Locavore where we engage in meaningful conversations, live events, and dining experiences that look at food beyond the sum of its parts. It is our attempt to narrow the divide between what’s on our plate, where it comes from, how it’s produced, and the deeper stories around it.