By Ashish Joshi
Food safety is defined as the handling, preparation and storage of food in a manner that prevents spread of any form of foodborne illness. A strong infrastructure for food safety is an issue of national importance for any country. This is because it has both long and short-term implications on the economy and public health. Therefore, almost all the countries spend large sums of money on food safety.
Nations have dedicated organisations, public and private, to ensure the availability of safe food products for their citizens. In India, the Food and Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is the division of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which supervises the functioning of food businesses in the country.
Food safety in India
The FSSAI was in the news last year when worms were found in a KFC meal in Mangalore. Another case came into limelight when a Dominos outlet served oregano sachets infected with insects. Thus, FSSAI has since taken numerous steps to ensure that such cases are not repeated and the food safety in India is getting better.
They have come up with a concept of a food safety supervisor across all the food businesses. This keeps a check on the quality of the food that reaches the end consumer. The authority has also launched a certification programme called the Food Safety Training and Certification Programme (FoSTaC), for the training of these supervisors.
They are further planning to mandate licensing of all food outlets from FSSAI. The licenses will be displayed openly to the customers. A food quality rating will also be introduced. This will be based on various parameters of hygiene, quality and awareness for food security. This rating will be compulsory for all FSSAI licensed food outlets including shops, stalls, hotels, restaurants, airline services, canteens and street vendors. The purpose of this rating is to establish a level of trust for the consumers in the food they consume.
One nation, one food safety law
The FSSAI is working on a one-nation, one-food-safety-law. The idea behind this pursuit is to have every States food authorities follow a standard practice for implementation, compliance and surveillance of food safety regulations across the country. Implementing a national standard across the country was deemed necessary after doubts were raised on the capabilities of FSSAI. This took place after Nestle, the Market Leader in instant noodles was ordered to remove its product, Maggi, from the market. The reasons given were that it failed to pass a safety test in one of the FSSAI labs in Kolkata. The product has been a market leader for years in India.
The law has always been the same for everyone. But there have been consistency issues at the state level. Also, we need to standardize food testing laboratories. With one-nation, one-food-safety-law, we will be able to remove those and make things more transparent, said Pawan Kumar Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, FSSAI.
The differences across the states have resulted in difficulties for businesses that span across the country. For example, a food product exported to India has to undergo examinations from numerous agencies. Thus, this makes it harder for a parent company to set up a business in India.
Therefore, the FSSAI is planning to abolish multiple state-level interventions and establish a single food security standard nationally. The idea is to ensure that investors and businesses have consistently positive experiences across the entire country.
A standards manual will soon be introduced to ensure that all the authorities work in a synchronised way.
Strengthening the food safety testing infrastructure
To strengthen the food safety testing infrastructure, the Bureau of Indian Standards, Agmark and the FSSAI have launched a food regulatory portal.
A digital solution named ‘Indian Food Laboratory Network’ (InFoLNet) has been developed. It will connect all the government and private food labs to a central management database present in the InFoLNet Cloud. The solution will keep records of all the test activities of these labs. By doing that, it ensures that a single set of guidelines is followed, making the entire system highly transparent. As per The Hindu, a total of 154 labs had registered to this system until the end of October.
The changing landscape of food safety in India had been pending for a long time. These changes are welcome as they will transform an outdated infrastructure into one which will ensure that businesses can function with relative ease. Moreover, it will ensure that consumers get good quality food and develop a sense of trust towards the business owner.
Feature Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons