KUMUDAM ARTICLE

DINAKARAN NEWS

Food biz owners conceal turnover to skip licence

Agra: Food Safety Drug Administration (FSDA) officials have found during random checking that several food business operators have concealed their actual income and are operating by merely registering themselves instead of procuring a licence. FSDA officials have asked these shopkeepers to get the licence as soon as possible or else a penalty would be imposed on them.
FSDA conducted random checking after receiving complaints that food business were operating in different parts of the district without a licence. As many as 40 food shops in Daresi and nearby areas in the city were found to be operating on the basis of a registration in place of a licence and 60 shops were found violating the regulation in areas located in Bah, Kiraoli, Etmadpur, Kheragarh and Fatehpur Sikri.
FSDA designated officer Ram Naresh Yadav told TOI, "Getting a registration in place of a licence is a theft of revenue. Violation of Food Safety and Standards (Licencing and Registration of Food Businesses) can be penalized Rs 2 lakh. According to an estimate, there are around 1,000 such shops in the district which are operating without a licence. Special teams has been constituted to investigate these businesses."
According to sources, even "petty food manufacturers" are governed by the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011. A "petty food manufacturer" is one who manufactures or sells any article of food himself or is a petty retailer, hawker, itinerant vendor or temporary stall holder, or distributes food except a caterer.
Under the norms, since August 2011, if the annual turnover of a food business does not exceed Rs 12 lakh per annum, then a Rs 100 registration is required. In case, the turnover is more than Rs 12 lakh per annum, the food operator must have a licence from FSDA by paying Rs 2,000 rupees as annual fee in order to conduct his business. The licence can be for a minimum period of one year to a maximum of five years. Shopkeepers have to apply online and submit a fee by a challan, after which the licence is issued by the department.

Is best-before date a necessary evil?

QUESTION OF CHOICE: At least some shoppers may be tempted to buy products past their sell-by date if no new batches of them are on the shelves.
The best-before date on the label misguides even the discerning customer.
A popular brand of table salt from a leading manufacturer has a label which indicates it should be used within 24 months of packaging. Does it imply that salt would go bad after two years? Salt is obtained by the process of evaporation of seawater, which has been in existence for eons. Do our processing methods make it unsuitable for human consumption after 24 months? Gingelly and mustard oils have been used by our mothers and grandmothers to prepare pickles which used to keep its quality for years. Why, even packages of our staple grain of rice have labels indicating best-before 24 months of packaging. Does rice become unfit for human consumption after being stored for two years? There are umpteen examples of food items which have dubious labelling which misguide the discerning consumer.
Nowadays, the so-called supermarkets and super stores sell grocery items in colourful polyethylene or polypropylene packets with information on nutrition, batch number, date of packaging and best before or use. What happens to these items that have overstayed on the supermarket shelves beyond the best-before date? Are they thrown away? Do these items really reach a state unfit for human consumption after the best-before date? Such information may be mandatory in advanced countries where supermarket shelves are packed with a variety of processed food items. There is growing concern in the advanced countries also about increasing amounts of food waste and the rising cost of these items mainly due to shoppers buying more than they need, lack of clarity around storage and labelling and over-estimating the quantities required for regular use. Many of the items are thrown away. In our country, the market for processed foods is relatively small. However, with the size of the urban population growing and young professionals getting fat salary cheques, they needlessly stock up on items that they will never use.
It is estimated that about 1.3 billion tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted globally. About 45 per cent of fruit and vegetables, 35 per cent of seafood, 30 per cent of cereals, 20 per cent of dairy products and 20 per cent of meat are so wasted.
The precursor to the concept of best-before date for a product was in the form of sell-by date introduced by Marks and Spencer of London in the 1970s mainly as a stock control measure to ensure a respectable turnover of products on its shelves. Gradually, sell-by-date or best-before dates have come to be assumed by consumers as a guarantee for food safety. Most of us have no idea how long a certain item of food might last in the natural course of events; we unthinkingly throw away good food because they have crossed the best-before date as mentioned on the label. Once we read the best-before date on a product and find that it has passed that date, we do not have the stomach to consume it. This results in unnecessarily wasting of a product. The very idea of the best-before or sell-by date meant for stock management in the supermarkets has inadvertently turned into a standard by which the consumer chooses to consume or throw away a product. We tend to implicitly believe in the labels printed on the packaged product.
The terms best-before or use-by date have somehow come to haunt us with surprising strength, though these are not based on recommendations of experts or certified by testing agencies. The manufacturers benefit by selling more of their products with the high-sounding concept of freshness and safety. Frozen poultry or thawed and chopped onions imported from a foreign country several months ago could be packed in an attractive modified atmosphere packaging to extend the shelf life and endow these ‘old’ items with fresh-like quality, which would be good for a fortnight after packing. This is indeed an anomaly.

Food During Pongala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Food Safety Department has asked individuals and organisations to obtain registration from the department for supplying food to Attukal Pongala devotees. Devotees, voluntary organisations, traders’ organisations, residents’ associations, labour unions and temporary traders should obtain licence to supply food to pilgrims.
The last date for taking registration is February 15. The department officials said online applications can be filed for getting registration. They can be submitted through Akshaya centres by producing a photo identity card, a passport-size photo and Rs 100 as registration fees.
For details, contact over 0471-2570499, 8943346582. Officials said strict action will be taken against unauthorised distribution of food items to the pilgrims.

For safe food during Attukal festival

The Commissionerate of Food Safety has made mandatory the registration of devotees, voluntary organisations, commercial establishments, residents associations and labour unions for providing ‘annadanam’ at the Pongala festival at the Attukal Bhagavathy temple.
A deadline of February 15 has been set for the purpose.
Further details can be obtained by contacting 0471 – 2570499 or 8943346582.

100 hospitalized after consuming adulterated food

INDORE: At least 100 people took ill after consuming adulterated food on Monday at a marriage function in Khajrana area following which district collector ordered magisterial inquiry into the matter.
Soon after consuming adulterated food including fish, mutton and halwa, one after other guests started vomiting and reported other health complications.
Later, patients were rushed to nearest private hospitals. All patients are reportedly stable. District chief medical and health officer Dr S L Porwal said, "During a function, guests had consumed adulterated food items that caused food poisoning. Patients are now stable."
Food safety officers reached the spot to take food samples that could have triggered food poisoning.

China court fines OSI, jails employees over food safety scandal

SHANGHAI, Feb 1 : A Chinese court has fined two domestic units of US food supplier OSI Group up to 2.4 million yuan (364,875 dollars) and handed prison sentences to 10 of its employees over allegations it reused returned food products to avoid losses.
The verdict marks the end of a long-running probe into OSI after a safety scandal in 2014 that hit fast-food giants it supplied – McDonald’s Corp and Yum Brands Inc, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in China.
The Shanghai Jiading People’s Court said in a statement on Monday that Yang Liqun, a general manager at OSI China, would be sentenced to three years in prison and deported.
It wasn’t clear whether Yang, who the court said was an Australian citizen, would serve jail time in China. The Australian embassy in China had no immediate comment.
OSI has criticised the handling of its case by the local food regulator – a rare act in China, where foreign firms steer clear of any public criticism of the authorities.
It said today that the verdict, which follows a December trial behind closed doors, was unjust.
“The verdict is inconsistent with the facts and evidence that were presented in the court proceedings,” it said in a statement. “As such, OSI is forced to consider an appeal through all legal channels in order to eventually be granted a just, evidencebased verdict as merited by the facts of the case.” The court statement said Yang and other workers at OSI’s China units had reused products from returned or cancelled orders, meaning some unapproved products had entered the market.
Nine other people in the case would be given shorter jail terms and would have to pay fines. Four of the nine would have their jail sentences suspended, it said.
The court added the punishments were relatively lenient because the defendants had cooperated.
China is trying to clean up its reputation for food safety scandals, which range from recycled “gutter oil” and “zombie meat” – smuggled frozen meat years beyond its expiry date – to crops tainted with heavy metals. Senior Chinese leaders have said food safety in the country remained “grim”.
The scandal dragged down sales at McDonald’s and rival Yum in China after a Chinese TV report in July 2014 alleged to show workers at a Shanghai unit of OSI using out-of-date meat and doctoring production dates.
A senior executive for OSI in China told the official Xinhua news agency last July the scandal had cost the firm close to a billion dollars in lost revenue.