Oct 13, 2015

Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan to strengthen food safety in the country

With a mission to provide safe and hygienic food for all, CII along with its National partners Cargill, VOICE and NASVI have jointly launched a National Campaign, Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan. The idea is to engage all stakeholders to catalyze sensitization and capacity building on food safety among consumers, street food vendors and the industry to deliver safe food of global standards and boost domestic trade and export.
The objectives of Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan will be to enhance Consumer Awareness on Food Safety aspects like Labels, Storage conditions and related hygienic practices. Widespread awareness would be strengthened among Street Food Vendors, Schools and Colleges. Food Service Providers including Railways, Food Storage Locations, Midday Meal schemes, Street Food Vendors, Mass Caterings would be sensitized on how to produce and serve Safe Food. Countrywide, Best Practices Sharing Summits, Workshops, Training Programs, Short Term Professional Courses with Partners of international repute and Food Safety Award Programs for the industry and street food vendors would be organized to enhance Capacity Building on Food Safety Benchmarks.
In phase one, the target is to adopt 100 food streets across the country, build awareness on food safety among 10000 consumers and build capacity on Good Hygiene and Manufacturing Practices by training employees of 300 SMEs towards food safety.
CII is organizing Food Safety Advocacy and Capacity Building programs across Delhi, North East, Mumbai, Bangalore, Lucknow, Jamshedpur, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Siliguri & others. The industry programs will aim at upgrading supply chain participants across the food industry to international standards of Food Safety. Some of the programs completed include the 2 day Master Class on Improving Performance and Process Improvement through Food Safety and Quality in Chennai and the Food Safety and Standards Regulations Training for Food Business Operators in Kolkata which received encouraging response from the participants; More workshops on topics like Good Agricultural, Good Manufacturing and Good Hygiene Practices for Food Processing in partnership with Ministry of Food Processing Industries in the North East are on the anvil starting mid October 2015.
Cargill India, the National Industry Partner for the Surakshit Khadya AbhiyanTM is committed to sharing international science based food safety practices in manufacturing, regulatory affairs, hygiene protocols, Global Food safety Initiative (GFSI) with other industries and encourage them to adopt these, thereby, helping improve the food safety ecosystem in the country.
The role of VOICE (Voluntary Organization in Interest of Consumer Education), an organization working for consumer awareness, education and empowerment besides setting standards and policies with government bodies, would include imparting Consumer awareness, education and empowerment besides setting standards and policies with government bodies while also help engaging consumers in various Food Safety Advocacy; Platforms including Walkathons and disseminate Food Safety information.
NASVI (National Association of Street Vendors of India) , an organization working for the protection of the livelihood rights of thousands of street vendors across the country, will promote safe Food at the National level through its Street Food Festival in Delhi, sensitize Street Food Vendors on hygienic practices in clusters and market meetings, sensitize peer leaders in markets and engage children of street food vendors to become volunteers of safe food.

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