FDA raided and sealed an illegal gutkha manufacturing unit at Cholla

BHOPAL: The officials of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) raided and sealed an illegal gutkha manufacturing unit at Cholla, where tobacco mixed gutkha products were being packed in plastic pouches.
According to FDA sources, four gunny sacks of supari, one sack each of kathta and zarsa along with 10 kg magnesium carbonate were confiscated. The factory was located in a rented house at Nav Jeevan colony and was operating illegally for the past six months, said an FDA inspector.
Selling of tobacco mixed gutkha was banned by the state government which came into effect from April 2012. Taking a serious note of the violation, the FDA inspectors booked owner Praveen Kumar Gupta under the Section 26 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
Further charges would be imposed after a laboratory test report, which is expected within a fortnight.

Advisory on Sale of contaminated pickles, in Chennai-FSSAI

1(56)/2012 /Advisory/FSSAI
Food Safety & Standards Authority of India
(Ministry of Health & Family Welfare)
FDA Bhawan, Kotla Road
New Delhi-11002

Dated: 25.06.2012

Subject: Sale of contaminated pickles, in Chennai-reg.

Please find herewith a sample report of contaminated pickle received from Spices Board Regional Office Chennai. It has been communicated that a consignment of export which was meant for export to Canada is found to be contaminated with Sudan-1, as per this report this is a serious issue, all states and UTs are requested to make a concerted effort to check such type of menaces in local markets also by taking stringent measures.

It is therefore requested that all States/UTs may kindly initiate appropriate action and FSSAI may please be kept informed of the action taken.

Sd/-
(Dr D.S.Yadav)
Deputy Director (Enforcement)

Encls: As above

To,
All Commissioners of Food Safety of States/UT’s
Copy To:
1. PPS to CP
2. PS to CEO
3. All Directors, FSSAI
4. All Central DOs/AOs
5. All DO’s Indian Railways

Food safety becomes national priority in CHINA

The State Council pledged on Tuesday to solve food safety issues in three years, but effective supervision and punishment of those breaking the law is the key accomplishing the ambitious target, analysts said.

A worker checks bread at a food factory in Baotou, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, in June. Zhao Tingting / Xinhua

"China's food industry still has many safety risks and illegal actions happen often," said a statement released on Tuesday by the State Council.
The government will launch a crackdown on food plants and individuals endangering food safety to significantly improve the situation in three years, the statement said.
Also, the country will establish a better regulation mechanism, legal and standards systems, as well as technical support systems, to improve the overall food safety management level in about five years, according to the statement.
"Major food safety problems are mainly related to production issues, such as the use of illegal additives and illegal food processing in small plants," said food safety expert Dong Jinshi, executive vice-president of the International Food Packaging Association in Beijing.
Food safety has become a major concern for Chinese consumers after a string of cases surfaced, including melamine-tainted baby formula products and pork contaminated with clenbuterol.
According to the State Council statement, food safety will become a measure of local governments' performance in their annual assessments. A database of food companies' safety records will also be established. Blacklisted companies' names will be made public and the companies will be punished.

Local quality authorities must also prevent expired food products from returning to the market, while consumers will get cash rewards for exposing substandard food products, the statement said. Li Chang'an, a public policy professor at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics, said that some local officials have been held responsible for severe food scandals in the past few years.
"But this is the first time that the country will launch long-term measures, which explicitly stipulate that officials will be accountable for food safety issues," he said.
However, analysts are worried that the measures in the statement will not be easily implemented because they lack details on officials' responsibilities and punishments.
"Safety problems with milk and the use of illegal additives in milk still exist after the melamine-tainted milk scandal in 2008," said Wang Dingmian, former vice-chairman of the Guangdong Dairy Industry Association.
"Punishment for food companies and officials with illegal operations in the food sector are always too light, which is the main reason for the prevalence of the food scandals," he said.
In 2011, several food safety scandals were exposed, including restaurants serving food cooked with "gutter oil" - illegal cooking oil recycled from kitchen waste, decomposed animal fat and organs from slaughterhouses.
"Many local government officials are only concerned with economic development. When food accidents happen, some of them just try to conceal them," Li said.

Vocational training will help get skilled staff

Though the Food Safety and Standards Act Compliance 2006 and Regulations 2011 has been implemented, hoteliers believe the Central government’s vocational training programme will help them get skilled and certified staff.
Skilled staff would not only understand the importance of food safety and kitchen hygiene, but also ensure that they are followed.
“The vocational training program will help us get skilled staff. For example, a person who makes perfect jalebis or dosas will not only get a certificate, but also know how to ensure food safety and maintain kitchen hygiene while cooking,” suggested Shashikant Shetty, general secretary, Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association.
“At present, most of the staff in restaurants is uneducated. The course will ensure that there are certified people who know their job. This will ease our job to maintaining a clean environment,” he added.
Vijay Gautam, director of Directorate of Vocational Education and Training, said: “We have already started implementing the skill upgrade programme. The target is ambitious and is not limited to one industry. We want to include the construction industry too. The idea is to ensure that we can sharpen the skills of uneducated people and help them get jobs.”

Only 845 of 20,000 food joints registered in district - Health dept tells them to get licence before Aug 4

Jalandhar, July 10
Even as Jalandhar is a hub of foodies, with a multitude of dhabas and eateries, the task of getting them all licensed under the requisite act is proving to be a daunting task for the health department.
Conservative health department estimates put the total number of eateries, food vends etc in the district at more than 20,000, but a mere 845 out of these have actually got themselves registered/licensed under the Food Standard and Safety Act (2006), so far.
The health department has issued only about 375 licenses and only about 470 eateries in the district are presently registered.
With the final deadline for getting themselves licensed being scheduled on August 4, 2012, the health department laments that despite spreading awareness, people are not turning up for registration.
The Food Standard and Safety Act (2006) has a huge number of proprietors under its ambit. It covers food vends, canteens, restaurants, milkmen, food retailers, wholesalers and even distributors and transporters in the food business.
The only trouble is that many of the proprietors themselves claim they are not aware about it.
A food vendor says, “None of the health department teams ever came to us informing us about these formalities. I wasn’t aware that I am supposed to get registered.”
A dhaba owner says, “I have got the licensing formalities from the municipal corporation completed. I wasn’t aware of the health department licensing regulations.”
While many vendors claimed that they were not aware of licensing, some said the system was designed to extract money out of them while no one was bothered about the law.
A city-based eatery owner said, “We are supposed to get ourselves licensed with the municipal corporation, the labour department and the health department. If we have to pay Rs 100, we are charged Rs 1,000. Money is extracted by creating scare that samples from eateries will be rejected. While the big guns pay money, the smaller vendors sometimes do not opt for licensing for fear of formalities and bribery. Handling one department is difficult and we are supposed to deal with three. If the departments did our work on time and did not charge extra money, all the eateries in Jalandhar would have been licensed by now.”
Civil Surgeon Dr RL Bassan says, “It is very important for all food proprietors/operators to get themselves registered/licensed before the due date. Licensing is a time-consuming procedure and if they do not start now, the procedure will get too late. Those not licensed by August 4, would be penalised with fine of Rs 5 lakh and/or imprisonment for six months.”
Commenting on allegations of bribery, the CS said, “Right now we are literally urging people to get themselves registered, the question of bribery doesn’t arise. But if anyone faces any such difficulty, they are free to bring the matter to my notice and strict action will be taken against the erring official.”
The Act
The vend owners were supposed to get themselves licensed since 1954 (as per the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954), but stats say very few had done so.
In 2006, the Food Standard and Safety Act repealed the 1954 Act and some of the regulations were changed.
As per the 2006 Act, eateries and food proprietors earning less than Rs 12 lakh per annum have to get registration done by submitting a form, two photographs and submitting a meagre fee of Rs 100 per annum.
Those earning more than Rs 12 lakh per annum have to get themselves licensed with a fee of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per annum (depending on the annual turnover). For licensing, the health authorities also carry out inspections at the eatery/vend premises and take food and water samples.
Restaurant owners, retailers, distributors, caterers with a turnover of more than Rs 20 crore per annum and wholesalers and transporters (with more than 100 vehicles/wagons for transporting food) with a turnover of more than Rs 30 crore per annum are supposed to get themselves licensed from the central government.

Monsoon’s munch maladies

A roadside eatery near Albert Ekka Chowk in Ranchi

Twenty-year-old Sameer Singh, a college-goer, fell ill after feasting on his favourite Chinese delicacies during a birthday bash at a Ranchi hotel a few days ago.

More recently, homemaker Sangeeta Kumari ended up with a vomiting bout after snacking at a roadside kiosk while returning from Pahari Mandir. “The doctor said I was suffering food poisoning,” said the 35-year-old, barely able to speak.

Watch your monsoon munch, especially when you are eating at one of the hundreds of food joints that have mushroomed at every nook and corner of the city, if you don’t want to land up with stomach infections or other rain-related afflictions.

Dishing out delicacies at nominal prices, these eateries — selling everything from chapatti-sabzi to chow mein — have little regard for hygiene and quality measures that need to be undertaken especially during the rainy season when humidity is at its peak, which helps viruses multiply faster.

With irregular or no food inspections and quality assurance tests, the eateries have a free run, offering stale food to customers and using unclean water.

“The most common ailment during this season is gastroenteritis, which causes vomiting, dysentery and even diarrhoea. Excessive water loss from the body occurs. This is because the eateries recycle stale food that remains unsold,” said A.K. Mahto, the head of medicine department at RIMS, adding that several such cases had already been reported at the hospital.

Another doctor at Sadar Hospital could not agree more. “On July 5, there were 12 cases of food poisoning. Most of the patients were poor or hailed from lower middle class. They can’t afford to eat at big hotels and mostly depend on thellas (food carts),” said the doctor, not wishing to be named.

Although after much delay, the state government finally implemented Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 & Rules 2011 in January this year, food joints continue to flout norms because of no regular quality checks.

State food controller T.P. Burnwal pleaded helplessness, saying that there were not enough number of food inspectors in the state to ensure regular and continuous sampling of food items being sold at hotels, food carts et al.

“In Ranchi, there are three food inspectors while four have been deputed for the entire state. However, we have issued directives to the seven inspectors in the wake of the monsoon, asking them to start inspections at all kinds of food outlets,” he said.

Govt conducts census for 5 cr food operators in country

New Delhi: In its bid to regulate the food sector, the government has launched a census for food business operators in the country. This exercise to collect basic information on major, medium and petty food business operators is being undertaken by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under the health ministry at the Centre in association with state governments. ‘‘To ensure any meaningful intervention in the food sector, the biggest challenge is to identify the petty food business operators. But we are trying to identify them with the help of state governments,’’ said K Chandramouli, chairman, FSSAI, at an Assocham FMCG summit, citing the examples of cities such as Singapore and Bangkok which have managed to put in place a regulation framework for street food.
According to rough estimates, there are over 10,000 major food business operators which would need a licence from the Centre. The number of petty food business operators across the country is estimated to be in excess of 5 crore. The food regulator is currently in the process of completing an exercise to bring all food business operators under a licensing and registration system. The government is also looking at putting in place a set of standards that food importers would have to adhere to.
‘‘While our food exporters have to adhere to various stringent set of rules and regulations for exporting food that meets standards of Codex Alimentarius, we do not apply similar stringency on quality of imported food. Therefore, it is imperative to evolve standards for domestically consumed food and imported food is definitely part of that,’’ said Chandramouli . ‘‘We at FSSAI are working out a mechanism in collaboration with all the stakeholders, including scientists, laboratories, experts and representatives from the food business operators (FBOs), including those involved in import-export of food material, to set standards for imported food ,’’ he added.

New food standards for idli and chaat on the anvil

CHENNAI: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is working on a mechanism to evolve standards for domestically consumed food items imported from abroad, chairperson, FSSAI, Dr K. Chandramouli said at an ASSOCHAM event in New Delhi on Tuesday.

"Our food exporters have to adhere to various stringent set of rules and regulations for exporting food, while we do not strain the same sort of stringency on imported food and thus it is imperative to evolve standards for domestically consumed food," Dr Chandramouli said

"We do have some standards to begin with but we need to take more steps in this regard to ensure the safety of food for consumption which comes from outside," the FSSAI chairperson added. He said that FSSAI was working out a mechanism in collaboration with all stakeholders that includes scientists, laboratories, experts and industry representatives from the food business operators (FBOs) segment.
The FSSAI in consultation with different stakeholders is also working on setting standards for traditional or the ethnic food as India is home to the largest variety of cuisines across different states. "There is also a need for a consensus of the FBOs in the country to ascertain who's selling what and where so that at the end of the day all get covered and our representatives keep collecting the information in this regard," Dr Chandramouli said.