May 17, 2017
FSSAI to take strict action against food adulteration
NEW DELHI: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is taking a stern view of any adulteration or lapse in hygiene in the food business. At a summit on Monday, its chief executive, Pawan Kumar Agarwal, said, “We will amend regulations to make it mandatory for food business operators to have at least one person trained in food safety.”
FSSAI also launched a food safety training and certification programme (FoSTaC), which has 19 short courses — from basic to advanced and specialised courses for street food vendors, restaurants chefs, caterers, food business operators as well as the general public.
The regulator unveiled a food smart consumer portal for registering grievances in order to strengthen its redressal system, along with releasing a guidance document for food handlers and regulatory staff. FSSAI has created safe and nutritious food mascots — Master and Miss Sehat —superheroes who spread awareness among children.
FSSAI will soon come out with new regulations relating to labelling of packaged food products and incorporate the expert panel's suggestions for reducing consumption of fat, sugar and salt.
New guidelines for labelling of packaged food soon: FSSAI
New Dehi, May 16 (PTI) Food regulator FSSAI today said it will soon come out with new regulations relating to labelling of packaged food products and incorporate the expert panels suggestions for reducing consumption of fat, sugar and salt.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will also frame a definition of junk food, its CEO Pawan Kumar Agarwal said.
Asked whether the FSSAI would implement the suggestions made by an expert panel set up by it, he said that many recommendations are beyond the regulators jurisdiction.
"We are bringing change in labelling regulations. We are making a big change," Agarwal told reporters here.
He said the FSSAI would, for the time being, incorporate the panels suggestions related to labelling of food products.
An expert panel set up by FSSAI has recommended additional tax on highly processed food items and sugar-laced beverages as well as a ban on advertising of junk foods on children channels or during kids shows on TV.
It has suggested that informations like total calories, amount of carbohydrates, sugar, fat, protein, sodium, dietary fibre, amount of trans-fat added in food should be mandatory for labelling in food products.
Agarwal said there is no definition of junk food and even this panelss report has not defined it.
Asked about suggestions of advertising ban, he said: "First, we will have to define, what food will be restricted. By itself, report can not lead to action".
Agarwal said the government plans to make it mandatory for food business operators to have at least one trained food supervisors.
The FSSAI, he said, is launching food safety training and certificate programmes through both offline and online system. It is looking for partners so that trainings could be provided across the country.
"With the scale we are contemplating, this is a massive exercise in raising the food safety standards in the country," Agarwal said.
The FSSAI is focusing on increasing awareness about the consumer grievance redressal mechanism adopted by food businesses. "Consumers should not be left high and dry when it comes to grievance redressal".
It is also taking initiative to provide safe, nutritious and wholesome foods to citizens at home, schools, offices, public places and place of worship.
Addressing the conference, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said the FSSAI is a very critical organisation in making India free from unsafe and unadulterated food.
He complemented the regulator for taking many progressive moves including fortification of food products to deal with micro-nutrients deficiency.
Stating that the FSSAI is using technology in a big way and is doing away with papers, he said there should not be any paper work and no public interface for getting license and registration.
"We allow the industry to do self certification. But if anyone is found violating the norms, there should be stringent and toughest action," Kant said.
He stressed on harmonisation of Indian standards with global norms.
Send complaints about adulteration to dedicated WhatsApp number
Trichy: The process of registering complaints about adulteration of food commodities and inferior food quality is all set to become easy with the Tamil Nadu food safety department introducing a WhatsApp number for grievance redressal.
On Monday, the Trichy district administration informed people that they can lodge complaints to the food safety department in Chennai on the WhatsApp number - 94440 42322. The number will be accessed by a state-level officer. The complaints will be forwarded to the designated officer (DO) of the food safety department in respective districts. Thereafter, the food safety officer (FSO) of the taluk will receive the complaints on his smart phone and will start an inquiry.
Though the number was officially released by the district administration on Monday, it had already received a few complaints from Trichy. A complaint about inferior quality biscuits was one of the complaints received recently on the number.
The purpose of introducing a dedicated WhatsApp number for receiving complaints is to reduce the time gap between the date of filing the complaint and the action taken on it, said officials.
They said the volume of complaints received is likely to increase as people become familiar with the number. People can lodge complaints about inferior quality of the food and food products, use of carbide stones for ripening mangoes, sale of commodities beyond the expiry date, and manufacturing date or expiry date missing on the label, among others.
Officials said that adulteration of edible oil is a worrying trend in the district. This involves mixing of rice bran oil or palm oil with gingelly oil.
Meanwhile, designated officers in all districts in the state have been ordered to submit a compiled report on action taken on complaints received on the number.
FSSAI to define junk food before imposing additional tax
FSSAI CEO Pawan Kumar Agarwal says will define junk food before looking at imposing additional tax on packaged foods with high fat, sugar and salt content
New Delhi: Food safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) chief executive officer Pawan Kumar Agarwal on Tuesday said the food regulator will first “define junk food” before looking at imposing any additional tax on packaged foods with high fat, sugar and salt content.
Last week, FSSAI had put up a report by an 11-member expert group on the subject. FSSAI had set up the expert group after a Delhi high court order in June 2015. The expert group, which listed almost every packaged food item in the category, had proposed an additional tax on all packaged food items with high fat, sugar and salt.
“Imposing additional tax on the purchase of commodities such as pre-packaged foods with high salt and fat content, sugar sweetened beverages, etc. can be a pragmatic approach to reduce the rising burden of chronic diseases among Indian population. Imposing excise tax on unhealthy eating products can be an endeavour to bring about positive health effects among population. This exercise can be of great importance in supporting nutrition-related programmes by the means of profit generated from taxing unhealthy food products,” noted the expert group report.
“The report will be used as a reference. We may or may not take the suggestions listed there,” Agarwal said, adding that the regulator is likely to bring new labelling norms based on the suggestions in the report. The regulator is in the process of finalizing the new labelling norms.
The expert group also asked for restrictions of advertisement of these products on kids television channels and during programmes targeted to children. “This has to be looked into in detail,” Agarwal said.
Meanwhile, Agarwal said FSSAI is collaborating with corporate entities, academic institutions and Government skilling councils for Food Safety Training and Certification programme to train food safety supervisers. “Over a period, every food company will mandatorily have to have at least one trained food safety supervisor at its premises,” said Agarwal.
The authority has developed 19 short-term courses that would be offered at different institutes. “We’ll eventually host e-learning courses that will be available to all and raise the food standards of food businesses by several notches,” added Agarwal.
On Tuesday, the food regulator also launched a new interactive portal meant for the consumers for information, references and grievance redressal.
As part of its aim to enhance food safety and nutrition, FSSAI is planning to come up with joint campaigns with the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, the regulator said in a statement.
High-fat foods: FSSAI to examine expert panel’s views
Portal for consumer grievances launched
NEW DELHI, MAY 16:
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India ( FSSAI) has asked its scientific panel on nutrition and food fortification to examine some of the recommendations made earlier by an expert group to rationalise consumption of food items high on fat, sugar and salt.
The expert group was set up by FSSAI in 2015 and has made a wide range of recommendations which include banning ads of food items with high fat, salt and sugar on kid’s channel and clearer nutritional labelling on packaged food among others.
On whether the recommendations on ad restrictions will be implemented, Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI said, “The report does not define the food products that should not be advertised to children. It falls short on that and hence there are challenges. Unless there is a definition, one cannot move forward. We have set up a separate scientific panel for food fortification and nutrition and it will examine some of these recommendations.”
While the report does not define “junk food”, it has stated that the expression popularly refers to food which has no positive nutritional value and often may lead to health problems.
He added, “The expert group has made eight recommendations and some of these go beyond the jurisdiction of FSSAI. Some of the recommendations such as changes in labelling norms, which come under our jurisdiction, will be incorporated in the new labelling regulations, which we are in the process of finalising.”
Meanwhile, the regulator on Tuesday launched the FoSTaC (Food Safety Training and Certification) programme. Under this initiative, the regulator will be launching 19 short-term courses designed to train food safety supervisors in food companies in collaboration with universities, NGOs, industry associations and other government departments.
It also launched its Food Smart Consumer Portal, which is an interactive portal for consumers to lodge their grievances and ask information besides focusing on consumer education. FSSAI also launched its Safe and Nutritious Food (SNF) portal which would function as an online resource centre on food safety and nutrition.
Rights panel seeks report from FSSAI
‘Chemicals used to preserve fruits’
The Kerala State Human Rights Commission has asked the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to submit a report to the State Food Safety Commissioner on the allegation that chemicals have been used to preserve fruits that is being exported from the Calicut International Airport.
Based on media reports
Commission acting chairperson P. Mohanachandradas said in a press release that a suo motu case had been registered based on media reports and an explanation sought from the State Food Safety Commissioner on the issue.
The commission was told that the Assistant Food Safety Commissioner, Malappuram, had collected samples and sent them to the food analytical laboratory in Kozhikode.
When it was pointed out that the FSSAI was issuing licence to firms involved in selling food at the airport and the State officials did not have the authority to conduct raids there, Mr. Mohanachandradas served a notice on the Central agency. The commission pointed out that “cheating expatriates by sending them unhealthy food” could not be tolerated.
FSDA team seals 2 medical stores after raid in Bijnor
Bijnor: A Food Safety and Drugs Administration (FSDA) team conducted raids on medical stores in Chandpur block of Bijnor on Tuesday and collected close to 248 samples of medicines for test.
FSDA officials also recovered prohibited injections, generally used by drug addicts.
Licenses of two medical stores were also cancelled by the inspecting team.
"The joint team of police and FSDA raided two medical stores in Chandpur city and seized 38 Oxytocin injections, 350 Fortwin injection and 3,940 tablets of Alprazolam,” an officer said.
According to drug inspector Ashutosh Mishra, “On Tuesday, we raided two medical stores in Chandpur and collected 248 samples of different medicines. Both the medical stores have been sealed and their licenses scraped. We have also found some medicines which had no level.”
“A case has been registered under respective sections. The samples will be sent to laboratory for testing,” Mishra added.
He further said, “We have recovered some medicines from the medical stores which are used by addicts. The campaign will go on. We will raid more stores.”
Food Safety Officers Conducted Raid at Grain Market Sector-26
Chandigarh: In view of the ongoing summer season artificial ripening of fruits like mango, papaya with calcium carbide is common practice adopted by various Food Business Operators. The use of which is prohibited for ripening of fruits under the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011. The ripened fruits with the above said chemical cause serious health problems.
Looking into the seriousness of the matter the Food Safety Officers i. Sh. Bharat Kanojia, Sh. Surinder Pal Singh, Sh. Bhaljinder Singh, Mandeep Kaur, Mrs. Nisha Juneja, Navneet Bagga and Ms. Amardeep Kaur in early hours conducted a massive raid in the area of Grain Market, Sector-26, Chandigarh as directed by the designated Officer, Food Safety Administration, Chandigarh. The officers from the Food & Supply Department also accompanied the team. Many warehouses and shops where the fruits like mango and papaya were stored were inspected and it was found during inspection that the Food Business Operators were using Calcium Carbide for its ripening. About 180 kgs of Mangoes was seized and destroyed in th dumping ground of Chandigarh through the vehicles of Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh.
The traders dealing in sale, storage and distribution of fruits are advised not to use any type of hazardous chemical for the ripening of fruits. If anybody is found violating the provisions of Food Safety and Standard Act,2006 and the Rules & Regulations, 2011 framed there under, action will be initiated against the such violators.
Raid conducted, food samples collected
Following the directions of health Minister Brahm Mahindra and commissioner food Siri Varun Roozam, a Special raid was conducted today in the evening to check those food business operators who were selling fast food on the carts and in shops.
Samples of fast food items were taken from nakodar road, old GT Road and other areas of the city.
Two samples of milk were also taken from a dairy in Ajit Nagar Bhattha Road. Samples of roasted China and biscuits were taken from Nakodar Road near Lal Rattan Cinema Jalandhar.
As many as 11 samples of milk, two, sauces and chutney, bhaji, roasted chana, biscuits and other champ were collected by the food safety team.
All the food business operators particularly those dealing with prepared food items were directed to prepare food and serve food while wearing gloves, headgear and after taking other Hygenic protections.
Dr Harjot Pal Singh Assistant Food Commissioner directed all the food business operators to obtain online food licence at the earliest failing which necessary legal action shall be initiated against those working without license.
It Is worth mentioning here that the last date for obtaining online food licence has already expired. The sampling team consisted of team in charge Dr Harjot Pal Singh assistant commissioner food Jalandhar, food safety officers Rashu Mahajan and Divya Bhagat along withalong with other employees.
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