An assorted gift box takes the shelf life of its shortest-lived sweet. One kalakand in a box of kaju katli makes the whole box a same-day box. FSSAI publishes the per-sweet figures, so this is a decision you can settle with data in October rather than guess at in November. Updated October 2026.
FSSAI's five shelf-life bands with the sweets named in each: same-day kalakand, two-day refrigerated Bengali sweets, the four-day burfi and peda family, seven-day ghee and dry fruit sweets, and the thirty-day dry ones. Then what that means in practice: mark the box with the shortest life in it, keep the fridge boxes away from the shelf boxes, and work the production window backwards from 8 November.
A box packed in advance and put on the shelf is a pre-packaged commodity and carries the full declarations. A box filled to the customer's order in front of them is a different case, because the rules are written around a pack made without the purchaser present. The same split decides the GST treatment, and CBIC's own FAQ answers the counter case directly.
Do this before the artwork, because the label carries the price. It costs the box rather than the recipe: each sweet at its own rate per kilogram on the weight you actually fill, packaging as its own line, assembly labour per box, and breakage on the fragile lines. Then the margin, checked against the shelf life you printed.
The declarations, split into the ones whose clause numbers are confirmed and the ones that are real requirements added by later amendments. Name and address, generic name, net quantity, month and year, the retail price with its prescribed wording, and the allergens in their prescribed form. Then the food labelling rules, which are stricter on dates than the packaging rules are. Country of origin, best before, consumer care and unit sale price are listed as the real requirements they are, but without their sub-clause letters: those come from post-2011 amendments that could not be confirmed against a consolidated official text, and a wrong rule number on compliance content is worse than none.
Petpooja Invoice raises GST-compliant bills with the tax worked out automatically, handles barcode scanning and weighing-scale integration, and keeps batch and expiry against each line.
Explore Petpooja InvoiceMost assorted boxes are composed by eye. Someone decides the box looks good with a bit of everything in it, the artwork goes to print, and a date gets chosen because it seems about right. The problem with that sequence is that the date is not a design decision. It is set by whichever sweet in the box spoils first.
FSSAI has published the numbers. Its Guidance Note on traditional milk products carries an illustrative list of Indian sweets sorted into five shelf life bands, with the sweets named in each. Kalakand and its variants are same-day. Rasgulla, ras malai, rajbhog, cham cham and sandesh are two days, refrigerated. The burfi and peda family, including boondi ladoo, is four days. Kaju katli, ghewar and the dry fruit sweets are seven. The dry, low-moisture sweets, besan and atta laddoo, chana burfi, sohan halwa, gajjak and chikki, are around thirty. The note names roughly a hundred sweets across the five bands, so the ones listed here are the common ones rather than the whole list.
Put those side by side and the composition problem becomes obvious. A box holding one piece of kalakand and eleven pieces of kaju katli is a same-day box, not a seven-day box, and no amount of careful packaging changes that. The same logic decides whether a box can be couriered at all: a corporate gift that sits in a lobby over a weekend needs contents from the last two bands, because the first three will not survive the journey.
It also decides when you can make them. A four-day box has to be produced in the first week of November for a Diwali on the eighth, which means a night shift at exactly the wrong moment. A thirty-day box can be made in late October. If you want real volume without wrecking your kitchen in the final week, the shelf-life band is the lever, and it is pulled at the composition stage.
The rest of the checklist follows from that choice. Once you know what is in the box and how long it lasts, section 02 settles which rules apply, because a box packed in advance and a box filled at the counter are not the same thing in law. Section 03 lists what a pre-packed box has to declare, taking the date-marking position from our Bakery Business Startup Guide rather than restating it. Section 04 costs the box, which our free food cost calculator does not do, because it costs recipes rather than assembled packs.
Here's a preview of what you'll get inside:
Kalakand and its variants are listed as same-day sweets, to be kept at room temperature and eaten that day. A single piece in an assorted box pulls the whole box down to its life.
Source: FSSAI Guidance Note No. 14/2020, illustrative shelf-life list, read 09-Oct-2026The longest band: atta and besan laddoo, chana burfi, anzeer khajur burfi, karachi halwa, sohan halwa, gajjak and chikki. The only band that tolerates being made in late October and couriered.
Source: same Guidance Note, very long shelf life bandThe threshold that sets your date format. Under three months the label needs the day, the month and the year. Every sweet in the table is under three months, so a month-and-year date is never enough.
Source: FSS (Labelling and Display) Regulations 2020, Regulation 5(10)The mistake the whole checklist exists to prevent. A box is as fresh as the first thing in it to spoil, so a four-day burfi sitting next to a thirty-day chikki makes a four-day box. There is no averaging and no best case.
Net quantity is the weight of the food, not of the tray, the sleeve, the ribbon or the carry bag. Festive packaging is heavy and this is the declaration most often wrong on a gift pack. Our barcode and SKU setup guide covers the pack declarations in general.
A box made up in front of the customer and a box packed in advance are different cases, because the packaged-commodity rules are written around a pack made without the purchaser present. Most sweet shops run both at once and label them as if they were the same.
That format is for a shelf life above three months. Every sweet in the FSSAI list is below it, including the thirty-day band, so a sweet box needs the day as well. A date that is less precise than the rule requires is not a small thing on a perishable pack.
The mandatory pair is date of manufacture or packaging and expiry or use-by. Best before may be added as optional extra information but does not replace them. Our Bakery Business Startup Guide sets out the full position.
It forces the whole box into the fridge, which changes how you display it, how you transport it and what you have to tell the customer. Keep the fridge boxes and the shelf boxes as separate products.
The packaging on a premium Diwali box is a real cost you can read off your supplier invoices, and hand-packing an assorted box is far slower than a single-sweet box. A price built on food cost plus a margin, with the box and the labour left out, is a price that loses money at volume.
For non-packaged sweets sold loose, the container at the outlet should show the date of manufacture and the best before date. It is the same freshness information the pre-packed box carries, and a batch number against each tray makes it traceable when something is queried. Our FSSAI Compliance Checklist covers the wider hygiene side.
| Decision | By eye | On the data |
|---|---|---|
| Shelf life of the box | Chosen to look right on the label | Set by the shortest-lived sweet in it |
| Mixed contents | A bit of everything, composed by eye | Composed within one band, so the box travels |
| Production window | A night shift in the first week of November | Long-life boxes made in late October |
| Net quantity | Weight including tray and sleeve | Weight of the sweets alone |
| Date format | Month and year | Day, month and year, as a short shelf life requires |
| Counter trays | Undated | Date of manufacture and best before on the tray |
| Costing | Sweets plus a margin | Sweets, packaging, labour and breakage, then margin |
| Corporate orders | Priced off the retail box | Costed separately for packing and delivery |
Swipe the table sideways to see the full comparison.
Download the free sweet box checklist: FSSAI's shelf-life bands, the declarations a pre-packed box carries, and how to cost the box itself.
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Petpooja Invoice raises GST-compliant bills with the tax calculated automatically, supports barcode scanning and weighing-scale integration for a counter that sells by weight, and keeps batch and expiry against each line so you know what is coming to the end of its life.
