Move towards Food Safety and Standards Regulations Implementation – A Good Beginning: CII Food & Bev 2012

New Delhi: In view of the recently mandated Food Regulations, CII organized an exclusive session on these regulations by CII- Jubilant Bhartia Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence (FACE) during the CII’s Food & Bev 2012 today in Mumbai.
Dr Indrani Ghose, Principal Counsellor - Food Safety and Quality, CII- Jubilant Bhartia Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence explained the shift from policing to self regulation, end-product testing to system standards, multiplicity of orders to a single act & focus on Risk assessment rather than control of adulteration in the new Food Safety Act in India.
The Conference was represented by industry captains from Food Processing, Manufacturing, Retail, Laboratories and Food Sanitation & Equipment manufacturers. It also saw participation from Consumers.
While the participants felt that Food Safety and Standards Regulations (FSSR) implementation was indeed a challenge, they welcomed the move by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) indicating that sooner or later the food industry needed to gear up on implementation of Food Safety and Quality systems by extensively training their in-house resources and addressing their infrastructure requirements in a planned manner. They expressed that, as consumer, intent towards FSSR implementation was a good beginning.
While India's vast population and its potential as a popular tourist destination made the FSSR imperative, some of the states were yet to overcome the constraints like administrative resource crunch and infrastructure hurdles. States such as Maharashtra, as industry representatives opined, is moving forward to address the challenges related to implementation. The participants pointed out that dearth of NABL accredited laboratories & reliability of laboratory reports were some of the other constraints they were facing. Besides these hurdles, Industry looks forward to the materialisation of FSSAI's plan for setting up laboratories in rural areas & approval of drafts on functional foods, labelling, packaging, claims and additives.