Safety guidelines for juice outlets

Many outlets found using low-quality milk, ice, water

The Commissioner of Food Safety has issued a set of guidelines to be followed necessarily by juice shops across the State, as prescribed by Section 30 (d) of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006.

The Commissioner said the guidelines had been issued as many food poisoning cases were being reported by customers of juice shops. A majority of these shops were using milk, ice and water of suspect quality.

All juice shops should have FSSA licences or registration, which should be displayed prominently.

The water and ice should be safe and of the prescribed quality.

The fruits, sugar, nuts and other additives used to make juices or milk shakes should be bought only from shops or outlets or traders who had a FSSA licence and the purchase bills should be kept. All packed food items should have the necessary label information. The details of purchase — name of the shop/trader, quantity, price and so on — should be entered in a register systematically and should be produced for inspection.

The water being used should be from a source of impeccable quality and the quality of the water source should be tested every six months at a government-approved analytical laboratory. These reports should be kept in the shop.

Store properly

All food items, including water, in the shops should be stored in covered containers of food-grade quality.

The fruits should be of good quality, with no trace of fungus.

The fruits should be washed and refrigerated. Ice should not be stored in polystyrene boxes, but in freezers or ice boxes. Prepared juice should not be stored for long in the fridge.

Food safety officials pointed out that most of the shops were storing milk in freezers well beyond the expiry period for use in milk shakes. This was an unsafe practice.

All employees in juice shops should have medical fitness certificates.

They should strictly follow hygienic practices in handling food. Those with any skin conditions or infectious diseases should not be allowed as employees in food businesses.

The environment in which juice was prepared should be clean and the implements used for preparing juices such as mixers, juicers and strainers should be cleaned after every use.

The refrigerator and freezer should be cleaned regularly and the last date on which it was cleaned should be displayed on the fridge.

The Food Safety officials have warned of cancellation of registration/licence if these conditions are violated. A period of three weeks has been allowed within which all juice shops should ensure that they are equipped to follow all FSSA guidelines.

Food Safety wing will start inspections on December 1 and juice shops which are found to be failing in hygiene and safety standards will have to face legal action, the Food Safety Commissioner has warned.

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Of safety, standard (headline)

Shops should have FSSA licence or registration

Staff should have medical fitness certificates 
Water, ice should be safe and of prescribed quality
Packed food should have necessary label information 
Fruits should be of good quality, with no trace of fungus
Violation of norms means licence cancellation

No monitoring of meat shops in Coimbatore

The Corporation does not have the required number of veterinary officers

Next time you buy meat, please try looking for the seal certifying it to be safe.

The chances are that you may not find any. This may be because the meat stall owner has not have slaughtered the animal at the Coimbatore Corporation’s abattoir or because there was no veterinary officer to certify the meat.

According to sources, the Corporation does not have the required number of veterinary officers to ensure that only healthy, adult animals are slaughtered. Nor does it have the necessary number of slaughter houses.

To put things in perspective, the Corporation needs nine veterinarians to monitor the slaughter houses and stalls because the number of animals slaughtered is high - around 38,000 cows and around 1,50,000 goats every year.

Each veterinarian is permitted to certify not more than 96 animals a day. But there are none.

The Corporation was asked way back in 2011 to appoint at least on contract basis nine veterinary doctors and a veterinary officer to supervise the doctors to ensure that the meat available to the city’s residents were safe. But the civic body has not yet responded to the demand.

As for the number of abattoirs, the Corporation needs nine. It has five on paper with only two functioning in reality.

The two that function are the ones on Sathyamangalam Road and in Ukkadam. The former is for slaughtering cows and the latter for goats.

The three that do not function are in Singanallur, Sowripalayam and Podanur.

The absence of sufficient number of veterinary officers and abattoirs means that there is laxity in implementation of rules.

As a consequence, the city’s residents are not able to ascertain the quality of the meat they are buying, the sources say.

As for pork, everything sold in the city is uncertified because there is no abattoir for slaughtering pigs - the Corporation has none. But rules clearly specify what the Corporation should do in slaughter houses and what the meat stall owners should do.

Sources in the Corporation say that the civic body would have to first write to the State Government to seek creation of veterinary officers’ post. Only then it could appoint persons to those posts.

There was consultations going on with the office of the Commissioner for Municipal Administration in this regard and soon a decision would be taken.

‘Residents are not able to ascertain the quality of the meat they are buying’

DINAMALAR NEWS

Steps to check outbreak of infectious diseases

Stress on food safety in wake of Sabarimala pilgrimage
The district health administration has directed all health field staff to ensure that sufficient precautions are taken to prevent any outbreaks of infectious diseases, especially food-or-water-borne illnesses, in the wake of the Sabarimala pilgrimage season when a large number of people from outside the State are likely to congregate in the city.
District Medical Officer K.M. Sirabuddin said he had written to the city Corporation Secretary, requesting the civic body’s assistance in maintaining vigil on food safety and ensuring that the Public Health Act was implemented strictly.
The health field staff of the Health Department and the Corporation will conduct joint inspections and raids on eateries in the city in the coming weeks to ensure that hygiene was being maintained and safety precautions were being observed in the preparation of food.
Typhoid cases
The raids are being conducted as food-borne infections such as typhoid are increasingly being reported in the district.
The threat of outbreaks of water-borne infections such as Hepatitis A and cholera is also high, especially in areas where sanitation facilities are not proper and there is the possibility of sewage contamination in drinking water.
Against leptospirosis
The DMO said directions had been issued to all field staff to ensure that garbage accumulation did not lead to a spurt in leptospirosis.
Disinfectants or bleaching powder should be strewn in all places where garbage was being dumped to prevent the proliferation of rats, it has been directed.

Food Safety Regulation brings new hope for Tea quality

Tea Board of India is all set to implement Food Safety and Standards Regulation, 2011 in total spirit in all aspects of the tea industry.

As per the regulatory guidelines set up by the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI), all organizations managing food and beverage operation are required to implement good hygiene practices, good manufacturing practices and fulfill the requirements of Codex HACCP guidelines.

The Tea Board has already started awareness drives in association with CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) – FACE (Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence) among all the stake holders in tea industry in tea growing region.

As per the Food Safety & Standards Act (FSSA), 2011, all food business operators, involved in processing, packaging, distribution, storage and transportation will come under the purview of regulations and have to procure license or get them registered with FSSAI as per their turnover to carry out business prior to February 4, 2014.

P Chakraborty, councellor of CII–FACE said the objective of the Act is to consolidate various laws relating to food in India for laying down science based standards for food, to regulate, manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and export/import of food products, to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption.

“The overall objective of the Act is to improve quality of food and beverages. The Act is very strict and any violation by the concern person will invite stringent penalties,” Chakborty said.

Under the new Act, the Contaminants in Tea should be in the following forms:

Metal contaminant	Parts per million by weight on dry tea
Lead	10.0
Copper	150.0
Arsenic	3.0
Tin	250.0
Zinc	50.0

Chakraborty said the Act also lays norms for presence of chemicals in tea. According to the new norms–pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, weedicides, microbials are to be used in tea garden as per the approved list of TRA/ UPASI, and will have to be sprayed as per their recommended dosages.

The Act also asks to maintain sufficient gap of number of days in between spraying and plucking at the tea estates.