Adding a product, moving premises: how modification actually works

Modification, or a new licence?

The rule of thumb is the premises. Anything that does not move the premises is normally a modification: adding food categories, correcting a name or spelling, changing the proprietor or partners, updating contact details, adding equipment.

Moving to a different address is a fresh application. So is opening a second unit — a licence covers one premises, and the second unit gets its own number.

The category trap

The commonest finding we see on an otherwise clean file is a product being made or sold under a licence that does not list its category. A bakery that starts selling packaged namkeen, a dairy that adds a sweet, a kirana that begins repacking spices — the business grew, the licence did not.

FSSAI treats that as unlicensed activity for the product concerned, not as a paperwork slip. File the modification before the first sale, not after the first inspection.

How to file it

1. Log in to FoSCoS under your own account and open the licence.
2. Choose modification and select what is changing — categories, details, or both.
3. Attach the supporting document for the change: the revised layout plan, the partnership deed, the new equipment list.
4. Pay any fee that applies and answer the officer's query if one is raised.

Keep the acknowledgement with the certificate. At an inspection, the modification trail is what shows the licence has kept pace with the business.

Check the kind of business while you are there

The kind-of-business table was replaced on 1 April 2026, and the tier now turns on annual turnover rather than production capacity. A modification is a good moment to confirm that the kind of business on the certificate still describes what you actually do, and that the tier still matches your turnover.

If turnover has crossed ₹1.5 crore or ₹50 crore, the change is not a modification at all — it is a different licence.