Certified street food vendors, restaurants soon in Goa

PANAJI: Street food vendors and restaurants owners in Goa may soon have to display a certificate mentioning that they have been trained on safe food practices in their premises. The certificate will be issued by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) office in the state.

Presently, food carts and restaurants display their FDA permit prominently. The proposed certificate of training will be in addition to the FDA permit and it will be for the benefit of consumers.

About 800 food operators comprising of 500 street food vendors and 300 restaurants will soon be trained in batches by officials from the FDA and volunteers under the project ‘Serve Safe Food,’ launched recently by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), New Delhi.

Once trained, the participants will receive a certificate, which they may be asked to display on their carts or premises for the benefit of customers. The timeframe for completion of training and issuance of certificates is tentatively six months.

The project called as 10@10 initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will first kick-off on November 2 wherein 30 street food vendors from Panaji, Taleigao and Bambolim will be taught hygienic food practices like handling of food, use of nutritious ingredients etc.

According to FDA estimates, there are 500 street food vendors and 300 restaurants with a turnover above Rs 12 lakh annually. Another equal number of restaurants have a turnover below Rs 12 lakh annually. In six months, about 800 vendors and restaurants will be trained and thereafter the rest will be trained, said Salim Veljee, director, FDA.

On Sunday, Pawan Agarwal, chief executive officer, FSSAI, visited Goa and launched a master trainer programme to train the trainers, who will be imparting education to the food cart and restaurant owners.

Goa is the first state in India where the 10@10 initiative has been launched. The initiative is on commemoration of a decade of completion of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. Dr Pasupathy Chinmayee, the expert on food safety subject from FSSAI, came down to impart training to master trainers.

Those present at the function included Sanjay Bhandari, Nestle India, Heena Yadav, consultant to FSSAI, New Delhi, and Nita Brid, Cidade de Goa, where the function was held.