Thonmai
Cooking oil labels are crowded with claims — "pure," "natural," "healthy," "traditional." Some of those are meaningful and checkable. Others are just words. Here's what's actually worth looking for the next time you're comparing bottles.
1. The FSSAI licence number
Every legally sold food product in India must carry a 14-digit FSSAI licence number, issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. It's not a quality score, but it does mean the manufacturer is registered and accountable to a regulator. It should be printed clearly on the label — on Thonmai Groundnut Oil, for instance, it's FSSAI Lic. No. 12426024000051.
2. IS standard compliance
Look for a reference to an Indian Standard (IS) number — for groundnut oil, that's typically IS 544:2014, the Bureau of Indian Standards specification covering purity parameters like acid value, peroxide value, and the absence of contaminants such as argemone oil (a known adulterant in edible oils). A label that cites the standard is telling you it's been tested against a defined benchmark, not just described in marketing language.
3. What's NOT on the ingredients list
For a single-seed pressed oil, the ingredients list should be exactly one item — the seed itself. If you see stabilisers, anti-foaming agents, or blended oil percentages, that's a different (not necessarily worse, but different) product than a traditionally pressed single-origin oil.
4. Nutrition information, not just marketing copy
A proper label carries a nutrition table — energy, total fat, and the saturated/mono-unsaturated/poly-unsaturated breakdown, plus trans fat and cholesterol. Trans fat should read 0% for any properly pressed, unhydrogenated oil. This is the part of the label that lets you compare products on facts rather than adjectives.
5. Net content and price per litre
Bottle sizes vary (500ml, 1L, 5L), so the sticker price alone isn't a fair comparison — check the per-litre cost before deciding what's actually the better value.
Every Thonmai bottle carries its FSSAI number, IS 544:2014 compliance mark, full nutrition table, and a single-ingredient list — see it for yourself on our Groundnut Oil page.