India produces billions of PET plastic bottles every year. The bottles that hold mineral water, soft drinks, edible oil, and packaged juices. Most are technically recyclable. A far smaller number are actually recycled back into packaging that can touch food again.
- What the FSSAI Authorisation Actually Means
- 5 Numbers That Define This Story
- The Regulatory Deadline Driving Everything
- How Chemco’s Process Works — From Used Bottle to Food Packaging
- The ESG Angle: What This Means for FMCG Brands and Investors
- Beyond Sanand: A Bigger Circular Plastics Play
- A Turning Point — If India Can Scale It
That gap — between a bottle that is recycled and a bottle that is recycled into something safe for food contact — is one of the hardest problems in India’s circular plastics economy. It requires not just collection and processing infrastructure, but rigorous regulatory approval. Until recently, only a handful of companies in India had cleared that bar.
Chemco Group just joined that list.
The Mumbai-based plastic packaging manufacturer has received formal authorisation from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to produce food-grade recycled PET (rPET) resin for food contact applications under the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging) Regulations, 2018. The approval makes Chemco one of a select group of companies in India certified to manufacture rPET resin suitable for direct food-contact packaging — a distinction that is about to become commercially critical.
What the FSSAI Authorisation Actually Means
FSSAI’s framework for food-grade rPET is stringent by design. The guidelines, published in May 2025, require that only recycling technologies incorporating at least one validated decontamination step — sufficient to reduce contaminants to levels safe for direct food contact — are permitted. Acceptable processes include super-clean recycling with surface treatment and high-heat decontamination stages. The output must meet defined purity thresholds before it can be used in any food or beverage packaging application.
The regulator maintains a public list of approved manufacturers. Being on it is not a formality — it is a prerequisite to supplying food brands with compliant recycled packaging material.
Chemco’s approval confirms that its rPET resin meets this threshold. The company’s output at its Sanand, Gujarat facility now carries not just FSSAI authorisation for the Indian market, but also US FDA and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approvals — making its recycled material compliant across three of the world’s most demanding food safety regulatory jurisdictions simultaneously.
5 Numbers That Define This Story
₹125 crore — Chemco’s capital investment in its food-grade rPET recycling facility in Sanand, Gujarat, commissioned in January 2026.
1 billion+ — post-consumer PET bottles the Sanand facility is designed to recycle annually, converting them back into certified food-grade packaging material.
₹9,000–10,000 crore — the estimated total industry investment already committed to building food-grade rPET recycling infrastructure across India in anticipation of tightening mandatory recycled-content rules.
40% — the minimum recycled content requirement for Category I rigid plastic packaging, including PET bottles, mandated for FY 2026–27 under India’s Plastic Waste Management Rules — rising to 60% by FY 2028–29.
₹450 crore — the combined investment Chemco and joint venture partner Kandoi Group of Industries are making in two greenfield facilities in Vapi and Dahej, Gujarat, focused on rPET-based flexible packaging.
The Regulatory Deadline Driving Everything
The timing of Chemco’s approval is not incidental. India’s Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Rules have set mandatory minimum recycled-content targets that are rising steeply and are already in force.
For Category I rigid plastic packaging — which covers PET bottles and containers used in food and beverages — the targets are:
- 40% recycled content required from FY 2026–27
- 50% from FY 2027–28
- 60% from FY 2028–29 onwards
These are not aspirational targets. They are mandatory obligations backed by India’s Extended Producer Responsibility framework. Companies that sell packaged food and beverages in India — from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to Nestlé, Dabur, Marico, and thousands of smaller FMCG brands — must meet these thresholds or face compliance consequences.
The problem is supply. Food-grade rPET is not the same as ordinary recycled plastic. It requires specific processing technology, regulatory certification, and verified decontamination. Until the approval of facilities like Chemco’s, India’s domestic supply of compliant food-grade rPET was a bottleneck. Companies wanting to meet their recycled-content obligations had limited options — import rPET from overseas (expensive), use non-food-grade recycled material (non-compliant for food packaging), or wait.
Chemco’s approval, alongside a growing list of FSSAI-authorised producers, begins to address that supply gap at a critical moment.
How Chemco’s Process Works — From Used Bottle to Food Packaging
Chemco’s rPET operation at Sanand runs as a closed-loop system. Post-consumer PET bottles are sourced through approved collection networks — covering households and institutions — and fed into a multi-stage processing line.
The bottles are first sorted using AI-assisted classification systems, then washed and shredded into high-purity PET flakes. Those flakes then undergo an advanced polycondensation process designed to deliver consistent intrinsic viscosity (IV) and mechanical strength comparable to virgin PET. Throughout the process, decontamination systems remove contaminants and non-PET elements — the critical step that distinguishes food-grade rPET from ordinary recycled material.
The output: rPET pellets that can be used directly in food and beverage packaging manufacture, with verified quality, consistent performance, and full regulatory traceability.
By keeping the entire process in-house — from bottle collection through to finished resin — Chemco maintains quality control at every stage and reduces dependence on external recyclers or long-distance logistics. That closed-loop model also means its brand partners receive a traceable chain of custody from post-consumer bottle to certified food-contact material, which is increasingly what BRSR disclosures and EPR compliance documentation require.
The ESG Angle: What This Means for FMCG Brands and Investors
For large consumer goods companies operating in India, Chemco’s FSSAI authorisation solves a specific and pressing problem: how to meet mandatory recycled-content obligations with domestically sourced, certified material.
That matters for several reasons:
EPR compliance: Under India’s EPR framework, producers of plastic packaging are obligated to collect and recycle a proportion of the plastic they put into the market each year. Using certified domestic rPET from an approved manufacturer like Chemco directly supports EPR fulfilment in a verifiable, auditable way.
BRSR disclosures: SEBI’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting framework requires India’s top 1,000 listed companies to disclose their environmental impact, including plastic usage and recycled content. A supply chain that uses FSSAI-certified rPET provides credible data for those disclosures — something that generic recycled content claims do not.
Greenwashing risk reduction: As sustainability claims face growing scrutiny from investors, regulators, and consumers, the ability to point to third-party certified, government-authorised recycled content matters. FSSAI authorisation, combined with FDA and EFSA approvals, is about as robust a credential as exists in the Indian packaging market.
Vaibhav Saraogi, Director of Chemco Group, put the regulatory significance plainly: “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. As demand for compliant recycled content continues to increase, particularly in food and beverage packaging, it becomes essential to build credible domestic manufacturing capabilities supported by regulatory discipline, traceability, and consistent quality standards.”
Beyond Sanand: A Bigger Circular Plastics Play
The Sanand facility is one piece of a broader expansion. Chemco and Kandoi Group of Industries formed a joint venture in 2025 to establish two greenfield facilities in Vapi and Dahej, Gujarat — both focused on producing flexible intermediate bulk container (FIBC) bags made entirely from rPET. Combined investment: ₹450 crore.
Together, these investments position Chemco not just as a packaging manufacturer that uses recycled material, but as a vertically integrated circular plastics business — controlling supply, processing, and end-product manufacture across multiple packaging categories.
That vertical integration is precisely what India’s circular economy needs. With mandatory recycled-content requirements tightening annually and ₹9,000 to ₹10,000 crore already committed by the industry to build compliant infrastructure, the companies that control certified, scalable domestic supply chains for food-grade rPET will hold a structural advantage for years to come.
A Turning Point — If India Can Scale It
Chemco’s FSSAI approval is a genuine milestone. But it is also a reminder of how much still needs to happen.
India generates an estimated 9.4 million tonnes of plastic waste annually. PET bottles, despite being among the most recyclable plastics in existence, still end up in landfills and waterways in enormous volumes. The collection infrastructure that feeds recycling facilities remains patchy, informal, and underpaid. And the FSSAI-approved list of food-grade rPET manufacturers — while growing — remains short relative to the scale of India’s food and beverage packaging market.
The policy architecture is now in place: mandatory targets, EPR obligations, an FSSAI certification pathway, and BRSR disclosure requirements. The investment is arriving. What remains to be tested is whether India’s collection, sorting, and processing infrastructure can scale quickly enough to meet the deadlines its own rules have set.
Chemco’s approval is proof that the supply side can reach global standards. Whether the rest of the system catches up in time is the question that will define India’s circular plastics story over the next three years.
Sources: Chemco Group press release; The Manufacturing Frontier; Business Standard; Packaging Europe; FSSAI; Sustainable Packaging MEA; Procurement Resource.
ESG World News covers sustainability, ESG policy, and circular economy developments across India and the world. For more on India’s plastic waste rules, EPR framework, and BRSR disclosures, explore our India Focus and Environmental sections at esgworldnews.com
