Mar 10, 2013

Dinakaran Vasantham Article


FOOD DEPT RAIDS DOMINO’S, MANGNIRAM, MAWA SHOPS

Ujjain: Three separate teams of the food department on Saturday raided the Domino’s Pizza Corner, Mangniram Muralidhar Maheshwari, Shankarlal Sushilkumar Mawa Bhandar and the Mahakal Mava Bhandar on Saturday.
A team led by city magistrate Shyamendra Jaiswal reached at the Domino’s Pizza Corner at 4: 30 pm and inspected sanitation and quality of food items there. He said the action was carried out under Food Safety Standard Act, 2006. The team collected samples of chapati and pizza buns from the shop.
Another team of the food department led by joint collector RP Tiwari inspected Mangniram Muralidhar Maheshwari and collected samples of sabudana, mordhan and other food items from there.
The third team led by food inspector Varsha Vyas conducted inspection of Shankarlal Sushilkumar Mava Bhandar and Mahakal Mawa Bhandar. The team collected mawa samples from the shop. All the collected samples will be sent to the laboratory at Bhopal for testing.

Ananda Vikatan Article




McDonald’s introduces traceability across all food products

McDonald’s India can now keep track of the products it sources from 40 different suppliers across the country. To do this, it uses a traceability system to record the movement of each ingredient that goes into making its burgers, a senior official said on Friday.

Every day, McDonald’s uses 8,500-9,000 buns, 3,000-3,500 kg of tomatoes, 2,000 kg of iceberg lettuce and 5,500 slices of cheese. These are delivered to 255 restaurants across India using 60-70 refrigerated trucks.

To maintain quality, these products can now be traced back along each step of the production and transportation process to their point of origin — the farms/ units from where they are sourced — right down to the date of harvest or production batch, Amit Jatia, Vice-Chairman, Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd, told Business Line. Hardcastle operates and manages McDonald’s 155 restaurants in the country’s western and southern regions, employing 7,000 employees, and serving 16.7 crore customers annually.

Using traceability systems, McDonald’s can track the temperature and location of any product being supplied to a restaurant anywhere in India, in real time and with accuracy (tracking temperature variations as small as 1 degree C). The system allows the company to identify where and when the produce temperature rose outside of preset parameters, and take immediate preventive action.

Traceability, he said, ensures not only consistency in the taste of food at McDonald’s but also puts in place stringent international standards of food safety and quality. If offers customers transparency on food quality and allows a specific batch to be identified, isolated and removed in instances where there is a discrepancy in quality standards.

It ensures the implementation of preventive processes within the McDonald’s supply chain, with significant savings in terms of product waste.

Each burger undergoes over 40 separate tests throughout the chain to ensure that the food served is inspected for safety, he added.

In the near future, McDonald’s will deploy brand extensions such as McDelivery, Drive Thrus, Kiosks and 24x7 operations, and will focus on re-imaging its restaurants with fresh and contemporary designs.

At present, the 16-year-old McDonald’s India has a network of over 300 restaurants across the country. Currently it procures 46,000 tonnes of potato from Gujarat. Its potato supplier in Gujarat, McCain, plans to double the acreage under the tuber to 8,000 acres next year under contract farming.

Used cooking oil to fuel cars soon

Used cooking oil may fuel your car soon.

The government has taken a clue from United States and Europe, where 75 % of used cooking oil is recycled to produce bio-diesel, and decided to have a similar frame-work for Indian eateries. As the first step in this direction, the ministry of new and renewable energy has asked the National Food Safety and Standard Authority (NFSSA) to prescribe standards and regulations for use of cooking oils.

India does not have any standard prescribing till when the cooking oil can be reused. It, thereby, prevents government agencies from taking penal action against eateries reusing bad quality cooking oil, which can be harmful for one’s health.

“Food cooked in oil reused has adverse impact on one’s health,” a senior government official said. But, the same oil can becoming environment friendly if re-processed and converted into bio-diesel. “Around 28 % of the European logistics trucks run on biodiesel,” the official said.

India can do the same provided the government sets up a mechanism for collecting the used cooking oil and refineries for converting it into bio-diesel. “Work has already started on achieving this ambitious target,” the official said.

The ministry has asked Punjab based Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Renewable Energy to develop a system for converting used cooking oil into bio-diesel and then test it on vehicles on experimental basis. The data collected would be employed for developing a long-term national policy, the official said.

The National Biofuels Policy has envisaged a target of 20% blending of petrol and diesel with ethanol and biodiesel by 2017 from the present 5% level. Achieving the target will not be easy considering constraints on availability of basic raw material.

Around five million kilo litres of vegetable oil will be required to produce adequate biodiesel. That would be difficult unless the government decides to divert some of the edible oil seeds for biodiesel. It will not be feasible considering its political implications. As an alternative, the government sees an opportunity is used cooking oil and wants to kick-start pilots in this regard.

Once the authority comes out with the standards, the government will start pilots in select cities to collect used cooking oil from large hotels and food industry for production of bio-diesel.

If the pilots work, the government believes more than a million kilo-litres of bio-diesel can be produced from used cooking oils. “Biodiesel has been produced from used common edible oils such as rice bran, soya bean, palm and sunflower oil,” the official said.

Fast food, fast bucks need no licence

Two unlicensed manufactures of ingredients of fast foods viz. chowmein, pickles, sauces and similar things of the genre were caught in a raid conducted in two different areas- Kokar and Chutia - in the state capital.
The raid team headed by Ranchi Sadar SDO Ameet Kumar comprising two food investigators, among others, raided the areas on Friday afternoon.
In Aadarsh Nagar locality in Kokar the team recovered huge amount of fast food materials, 86 packs of chilly sauces, 24 cartoons of chaumin and 100 litres of acetic acid from an unlicensed manufacturer. Huge number of empty cartoons ready to accommodate manufactured fast food ingredients was also recovered.
Besides, machines to manufacture chaumin noodles, bottles filled with sauce, colouring chemicals and huge number of empty bottles were also recovered. The bottles were not labelled with the date for manufacturing.
Near Lotta factory area pickles being manufactured with the label of Krishna Mixed Pickles and chilli sauces being manufactured with the label of Ambe Chilly were also recovered. The two manufactures had not taken license for the manufacturing.
Two chaumin machines, two sauce machines, one vegetable cutter were also recovered. In the machine for preparing the sauces potatoes and pumpkins were found. Two commercial cylinders and one common cylinder were also recovered. All these food materials have been seized and locked. The sample of food materials have been sent to the Food and Drug Laboratory for verifying their veracity.
“The reports would come within two weeks. If the samples don’t qualify the usual norm of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 those involved will be punished under the existing laws,” said SDO Ameet Kumar.
 The SDO further suggested that the no manufactures operating without proper licenses would be spared. He also urged the common public to avoid consuming fast foods from unlicensed vendors.