FSSAI to partner global, desi firms to up food safety levels

NEW DELHI, MARCH 27: 

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is looking to partner global and domestic companies to raise the levels of food safety and hygiene in the country. The regulator is also looking to engage with food companies on various other aspects such as compliance and developing robust consumer grievances processes.

FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said safe and nutritious food for all is a “shared responsibility”.

“We are looking to engage with corporates to scale up initiatives to ensure the availability of safe and nutritious food in the country. We are also looking to engage with companies on various other areas such as compliance, training and capacity building, among others,” he added.

The regulator on Monday signed an MoU with Coca-Cola India to train 50,000 streetfood vendors under its project “Clean Street Food” across India over the next three years. While Coca-Cola India will handle programme execution through its bottling plants network, FSSAI will help develop the training content.

Agarwal pointed out that several companies such as ITC, Mondelez India, Nestle India, Jubilant FoodWorks and TetraPak have recently collaborated with the regulator to create awareness about food safety and hygiene across schools, retailers, food vendors as well as streetfood vendors.

Project “Clean Street Food” will be rolled out in phases starting with Ludhiana in mid-April, and expanded to nine States gradually.

Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia, said: “We have been training kirana retailers for the past 10 ten years under our initiative ‘Parivartan’. This collaboration with FSSAI will help broaden the horizons of our initiative. We will train owners and employers of small food service outlets and streetfood vendors on the basic tenets of food safety.”