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The evolution of FSSAI

How the regulator is upgrading regulations and collaborating with food companies to modernize testing standards for food safety

The Nestle Food Safety Institute in Manesar, Gurugram, where officials of FSSAI and other firms will be trained in food safety.

It was an unexpected handshake. On 6 September, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) agreed with Nestle India Ltd to establish a food safety institute in India that will train officials of FSSAI as well as other companies in food safety. A little more than two years ago, FSSAI had accused Nestle India of selling unsafe instant noodles.

The Manesar-based Nestle Food Safety Institute was inaugurated by FSSAI chief executive officer Pawan Kumar Agarwal. The institute, a replica of the Swiss company’s units in China, and Lausanne, Switzerland, will conduct training programmes on food safety management systems, testing methods and regulatory standards in India.

The idea for the partnership, which Agarwal termed a “well-thought strategy,” came in February, when top officials of Nestle India visited Agarwal’s office. The meeting ended with an agreement on the initiative that would help the company mend fences with India’s food regulator, a tribute to Agarwal’s open mind as he sought ways to engage with food multinationals, even while aiming to ensure marketed food was safe for every Indian.

In June 2015, the regulator had questioned the safety standards of Nestle’s flagship brand in India, Maggi, the popular instant noodle. This led to the product being withdrawn from the market for five months. Yet now the relationship has been turned on its head, and India will seek guidance from Nestle on food safety standards and testing methods.

From administrator to friend

Regulators are typically not friendly with corporate entities. A regulator’s job is to keep companies under its ambit in check. So what led to the change in FSSAI’s mindset?

“If you want to ensure food safety, you have to work with them (companies),” said Agarwal. “You can’t fight them. We can engage with them not only to improve their own practices, but to improve the entire ecosystem. That’s been our approach. Make them more responsive. A healthy, trustworthy relationship is required between the regulator and the companies and other stakeholders.”

When Agarwal took charge of FSSAI in December 2015, the food regulator was seen as a prosecutor, especially by multinational firms. Importers as well as foreign companies with manufacturing units in India suspected the administrator of being biased in favour of Indian companies. But consumers were happy the regulator had begun to take erring companies to task—something it hadn’t really done since its inception in 2011 until Yudhvir Singh Malik, Agarwal’s predecessor, banned manufacturing and sale of Nestle India’s largest revenue-earner, Maggi instant noodles, on 5 June 2015, citing the alleged presence of monosodium glutamate and excess lead. Malik did not respond to queries from Mint for this story.

Until then most consumers were not aware of FSSAI. But once the Maggi controversy hit the national headlines, consumers started checking FSSAI labels on food packets before buying them. For the next six months, FSSAI stayed firmly in the news, courtesy the courtroom battles between Nestle India and the food regulator.

FSSAI CEO Pawan Kumar Agarwal

Mending fences

In August 2015, Nestle appointed Suresh Narayanan, then chairman and CEO of Nestle Philippines Inc., as the boss of its India business, in a bid to stem the crisis. His primary mandate was to bring Maggi noodles back to retail shelves. To do this, Nestle had to make the regulator understand that Maggi was safe.

This required an engaged discussion between Nestle and FSSAI, but the regulator was not keen to mend fences. Even as the court battles continued, Nestle reached out to the government in every possible way.

On 8 July 2015, food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal slammed FSSAI at a conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, accusing it of “creating an environment of fear” and hurting foreign investments in the food processing sector. At the time, Badal’s father-in-law was chief minister of Punjab, where Nestle has its oldest factory in India.

Malik and his team, on the other hand, continued their analyses of packaged food brands, especially the ones sold by multinationals. State food safety departments joined hands. Nestle started taking measures to tackle the mess. It communicated with every stakeholder—the regulator, government authorities, consumers and the media. FSSAI did not pay much heed.

Nestle reached out to Badal. “She was the only person who was open to discussion,” said a person who was part of the team that met Badal. “She understood the company’s seriousness about food safety and other things.” The person didn’t want to be named.

The narrative started to change for Maggi. In September 2015, a month after the Bombay high court overturned the ban, Malik was shifted to NITI Aayog as additional secretary. FSSAI got its next CEO only in December. In the intervening period, Nestle successfully re-launched Maggi noodles in the market, but only after a massive recall, in which 38,000 tonnes of packaged noodles were destroyed.

Narayanan needed to do one more thing: mend fences with FSSAI.

Building public confidence

After taking over as chief executive of FSSAI, Agarwal’s priority was building public confidence that food available in the market was safe for consumption.

In the next few months, Agarwal, who says his views align well with FSSAI’s chairperson Ashish Bahuguna, abolished product approval—a process that every company questioned. Instead, Agarwal started setting standards for each product category, emulating international regulators.

Unlike his predecessors, FSSAI CEO Pawan Kumar Agarwal has stayed away from taking an adversarial approach.

His agenda was simple: establish FSSAI as a trustworthy regulator for both citizens and food companies. He wanted to streamline regulations: reduce the regulatory burden on food companies, ensure single-window clearance for food importers, and make inspection risk-based, where “everything needs to be tested.” Agarwal believes that big businesses will maintain food safety in self-interest, as they will not risk damage to their reputation.

To build confidence in his agency among consumers, Agarwal expanded the regulator’s vision, focusing on various kinds of edibles and potables: the quality of street food, food at restaurants, prasadam available at shrines, tap water provided by the government, food served by Indian Railways. They examined the packaging and labelling of food products. The food items consumed by the citizens daily finally came under the FSSAI lens.

“My concern is that the overall culture of food hygiene in this country is not so good,” Agarwal said in an interview on 13 April 2016.

“We need to bring behavioural changes in society, and work with small and medium businesses to improve standards.”

Every day, for more than a year, FSSAI notified multiple standards of food products and regulations for food businesses. It then shifted the focus to ensuring nutritious food, by educating every citizen about safe food. Agarwal also started revamping the infrastructure of food testing laboratories. It was clear that a different FSSAI was coming into its own.

Not just Nestle

Agarwal was different from his predecessors in that he did not favour an adversarial approach. Soon after he took over as CEO he began to share public forums with corporate leaders. At first, these discussions were focused on how the FSSAI can extend food safety to every Indian.

Agarwal started announcing partnerships with multinational companies that he believed would ultimately ensure food safety. On the 10th anniversary of the Food Safety and Standards Act, Agarwal announced a 10-point agenda to ensure safe food in all places, including homes, schools, offices, eateries, even religious places.

On 28 March this year, FSSAI formally signed a memorandum of understanding with American beverage maker Coca-Cola Co. Under the agreement, the local entity of the beverage-maker will train 50,000 street food vendors, over a period of three years, on how to prepare safe food, ensure hygiene and manage waste.

Under Agarwal, FSSAI wants to develop a system that encourages food businesses to innovate and bring new food products into the market. It also wants to do away with unnecessary processes.

In addition, FSSAI inked a deal with Nestle India to train 700 street food vendors in Goa. “We are also working with companies like ITC Ltd, Mondelez India, Tetra Pak, Jubilant FoodWorks, Yum! Brands, among others, for different projects related to nutrition and food safety,” Agarwal said.

Kolkata-based ITC has been working with FSSAI to ensure nutritious food in about 10,000 schools. Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd does the same at 40 underprivileged schools in north Delhi, as well as looking at points of sale in the retail market. Then came the Nestle Food Safety Institute.

“Nestle Food Safety Institute will conduct training programmes on food safety management systems, testing methods and regulatory standards,” Agarwal said after he inaugurated the institute, the first of its kind in India. “Partnerships with private parties on food safety and standards are imperative for FSSAI. This is our effort to implement a first world regulatory ecosystem in India.”

Narayanan believes that creating the institute is a milestone. “Nestle can also help with its global expertise in areas of food science,” he said, “which will help FSSAI in taking informed decisions while formulating regulations.”

Reactive corporations

A lot of FSSAI’s actions are in line with how corporations think. In an interview in February this year, Narayanan said: “The relationship with FSSAI is professional. Things are better, in general. The regulator has been putting practical views. The hope is that these get translated into momentum.”

Most spokespersons of food firms refrained from criticizing FSSAI, but a few, on condition of anonymity, said it favoured some Indian companies, such as yoga-guru-turned-businessman Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. Agarwal insisted that most Patanjali products do not fall under the ambit of FSSAI. A Patanjali spokesperson echoed this view, saying that most of its products fall under the ambit of the ministry of Ayush, and that FSSAI does not have set standards for the ones that could fall under its purview.

T. Krishnakumar, president (India and south-west Asia), Coca-Cola, said life is easier when companies and the sector regulator work in a “collaborative manner”.

FSSAI’s aim is to operationalize standards without compromising public health and public safety.

“The dynamic leadership of FSSAI has been focusing on ensuring the highest standards of foods safety for over a billion Indians,” said Hemant Malik, divisional chief executive, foods division, ITC Ltd. “It has also proactively engaged in consultations with all stakeholders, including the industry, in several issues related to food safety, nutrition, fortification, hygiene and others. We are encouraged to see FSSAI play a pioneering role in taking all industry participants on board in its common mission of ensuring a healthier India.”

But not everyone is happy with FSSAI’s willingness to collaborate with companies. “There’s no doubt that the current CEO is better than all the previous ones,” said a top executive of a food company, asking not to be named. “But lately the regulator is asking companies to invest more and more in things which the regulator should do on its own. There’s a limit to how much a company can invest in social initiatives.”

Towards a larger goal

Agarwal has big ambitions. “Every morning when I get up, I say, my responsibility, and the responsibility of the authority where I work, is to ensure safe and nutritious food for 130 crore citizens,” he said. “You start with the bigger vision and translate that into small implementable activities and you’ll automatically reach there. Our vision is to ensure safe food for citizens, not to make lives difficult for food businesses”.

Under Agarwal, FSSAI wants to develop a system that encourages food businesses to innovate and bring new food products into the market. It also wants to do away with unnecessary processes. “We have changed a few things and are working towards creating an FSSAI interface that every citizen can understand.”

Agarwal wants to set comprehensive standards. He has accelerated the process of setting standards with the help of scientific panels and international references, creating standards where they did not exist. “Standard setting is a dynamic, ongoing process,” he said. “Something is always better than nothing. Setting fresh standards take a lot of time. Codex references are helpful and can be used as standards until we come up with our own.”

Codex references are standards, codes of practice, guidelines on food, food production and food safety that are recommended by The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint intergovernmental body of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization.

FSSAI’s aim is to operationalize standards without compromising public health and public safety. Of course, there are problems in the formative stages. In the first five years, systems were just being established. “There were issues with product approval, which was taking too much time and effort of the authority. We found that product approval processes can be simplified and even done away with in many cases. They are only to be used in cases where there is a concern with safety.”

Strengthening surveillance

The biggest challenges for Agarwal were to ensure proper inspection and stop the misuse of power. At the time of his appointment, FSSAI’s inspection capacity was very limited, he says. There are about 18,000 food safety officers in the US and about 6,000 officers engaged in food inspection in Canada. These are all federal staff. In contrast, FSSAI did not have a single food inspector in its employ. “In India, we depend on food safety officers in the field,” Agarwal said. “There are wide variations from state to state. This is a challenge that we are trying to address as we move forward. We are working with state governments, persuading them to have adequate number of food safety officers. We’ve made some progress.”

FSSAI’s priority is to slowly inculcate self-regulation. Towards this, the agency recently finalized regulations on third-part audit of food businesses, and has asked the units to have at least one food safety expert trained.

FSSAI is also building its own team of food inspectors. “A small number initially, we can’t ask for 16,000-18,000 people.” Agarwal said. “We have to be reasonable and look for a staff of a few hundred. We are building numbers at FSSAI headquarters and at regional offices.”

But FSSAI’s priority is to slowly inculcate self-regulation. Towards this, the agency recently finalized regulations on third-part audit of food businesses, and has asked the units to have at least one food safety expert trained. Educational institutes and the National Skill Development Authority will finalize short courses and conduct training.

FSSAI has decided to standardize the procedures around inspection. State-level food safety inspectors will have to follow centrally set standards. Agarwal has also restricted state-level food inspectors from divulging details to the media. Only FSSAI can do so. “Misinformation can cause real reputation damage to brands,” he added.

Making tests flawless

Agarwal is also overseeing the modernization of food testing laboratories across the country. The regulator, which owns and operates two laboratories and has approved 82 others in various states, recently allocated Rs482 crore to strengthen the food testing infrastructure, including upgrading and modernizing laboratories. Under this scheme, 45 food testing laboratories across the country and 14 referral food testing laboratories will be upgraded, enabling them to obtain accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). Besides, FSSAI will also set up 62 mobile testing labs. There are currently four mobile food testing labs in Punjab, Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

CAG scanner

Over the past 19 months, Agarwal has established standards and won the trust of corporations. FSSAI has begun working closely with several ministries, especially towards skill development. It is also ensuring that fortified staples are served in the national government’s midday meals scheme. The food regulator was also instrumental in ensuring that a bill proposing much-needed amendments to the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, was placed before Parliament.

Despite all this, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) began looking at FSSAI. Late in 2016, CAG decided to conduct a comprehensive performance audit, a process that continued for months. CAG’s audit examined how FSSAI fixes standards, finalizes regulations, approves products, ensures compliance and conducts surveillance. The audit results are awaited.

“It was a routine exercise,” said Agarwal. “It wasn’t just FSSAI. The audit includes the food safety offices of the states. This is not a matter of concern. Rather, what comes out of the report will help us improve our work.”

Look beyond the US

To set standards and regulations, FSSAI primarily follows the example of the US Food and Drug Administration. Experts say this is not enough.

Earlier this year, FSSAI requested the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP), a public-private initiative of the World Bank Group, to advise it on international engagements. Donald Macrae, senior consultant on regulatory reform, World Bank Group, submitted a report in July arguing that FSSAI needs to look beyond food regulations in the US and learn from middle-income countries such as Vietnam and China. Only this will ensure food safety across the country.

FSSAI needs to look beyond food regulations in the US and learn from middle-income countries such as Vietnam and China, said a report released by an initiative of the World Bank.

“Most of its (FSSAI’s) partnerships have been with developed countries but it has much to learn from other middle income countries that are facing similar issues at present or have faced them recently and moved through them,” Macrae said in the report.

The report lists the areas India can benefit from others’ examples. FSSAI can learn about the impact of slow urbanization, and how to help significant rural populations, from countries like Vietnam. It could learn how to scale up from China. FSSAI should emulate the UK in matters like regulatory delivery, third-party certification, risk-based inspection and planning, consumer focus and trust. It should look at the Netherlands and New Zealand for risk communication and compliance support.

“For FSSAI, the regulatory objective is to ensure a supply of safe and wholesome food, not to ensure a revenue stream of fines for violations,” Macrae said in an emailed response to queries from Mint. “Punishing those who do not comply because of capacity issues does not solve their capacity issues or deliver safe and wholesome food,”

Under Agarwal, said Macrae, FSSAI is focusing on the new approach of “supporting those willing to comply, in order that their challenges in complying are overcome and they then deliver safe and wholesome food. This focus is in line with what is happening across the world and FSSAI is being truly innovative in tackling this new approach,” he added.

9 Reasons why Railway Food is so Terrible and 3 Ways to Fix it

Very few of us "normal" citizens of India have eaten there, but reports from the Delhi circle, especially those from the exalted media lot with access, indicate that the food at the Parliament Canteen is supposed to be excellent, more so as the catering is done by the Indian Railways. This is one end of the spectrum.

Most of us "normal" citizens of India who travel by the same Indian Railways, however, tend to find the Railway food a rather sad burden that has to be tolerated, especially on trains where it is included in the fare. (Only in a few specific trains is the food is reasonable and sometimes good. The examples are Mandovi Express (Mumbai - Madgaon), Deccan Queen (Mumbai - Pune) and Brindavan Express (Chennai - Bengaluru). This is the other end.)

In the middle, somewhere lies the reality of railways food, leaning somewhere between the rancid and the tolerable.

Food poisoning, much in the news lately because of the recent Tejas Express episode, may well be rare. But un-hygienically prepared and served food on trains is the rule rather than the exception, even more so because the lowest bid sub-contractor system ensures that the people actually at the last point of delivery are more often than not untrained, underpaid and ill-motivated.

A similar situation exists on platforms and stations, where again the fairly obsolete processes involved in tendering for food outlets, and the huge corruption that the vendors, stall-operators and restaurants face from the vast variety of authorities involved, now also in the name of security, mean that the eventual loser is the customer. 

So what brought about this situation, given that till a few decades ago, railway food was considered safe, freshly cooked, and reasonably priced too?

1) Plain and simple, corruption top to bottom gnawed away at every point in the supply chain, which then like a termite infested pillar, simply collapsed under its own weight. From palming off contracts to favourites and disabling the Indian Railway's own catering arm, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC), to meddling with local menus in the name of standardisation, everything went under.

2) Hygiene and sanitation in pantry cars went spiralling downwards, again, for multiple reasons. Lack of adherence by Indian Railways to basic guidelines from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is the major flaw in the system here. They simply do not recognise any form of regulatory compliance over their catering services, on board or on platforms and anywhere on Indian Railways property.

3) A total mess was made of red and green dot regulations, resulting in complete mix-up of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, which in turn caused huge problems because refrigeration on- board especially long-distance trains was minimal if at all. A simple solution that food be totally vegetarian, as implemented in trains in some parts of the country, was not implemented on an all-India basis.

4) Take egg dishes, for example. On some routes, the Indian Railways have moved towards a simple solution, boiled egg in shell. On other routes, however, they still insist on serving cooked egg dishes at hugely enhanced rates, and cooked in conditions, which are best left undescribed, with ample room for a fiddle in quantities.

5) In the name of standardisation of menus on the Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto class trains, where food is part of the ticket price, we get a menu, which is no longer representative of anything other than a lack of imagination and bits and pieces of junk food. In addition, some elements, like single-serve corn flakes served with open milk, are invitations to disaster considering the truth about milk in our hinterlands.

6) With tighter seating and more berths inside railway coaches, the sheer number of passengers who need to be served especially when reservation against cancellation (RAC) is also taken into consideration, easily rises to 120% of the booked capacity of a train. The storage, serving and then removal of food trays in such situations becomes a disaster; toilets have been known to be used for this.

7) The preference and insistence on the part of Indian Railways to continue to serve watery curries, which spill all over the place is another reason for catering mishaps. A drastic change towards dry options, or thicker gravy items if they must be served, is essential. Daals, lentils, that essential component of Indian food, are never as watery as served on our trains. Naturally, it will flow, all over the place and mess things up even more.

8) If you are unfortunate enough to have the saloon coach of a free-riding ‘Higher Officer’ or any other elected or selected representative hooked on to your train, then the overall food quality for the rest of the paying passengers will come crashing down. This is because the budget for the meals and snacks and more served to the free loaders and their entourages come from your share of the raw materials and prepared food.

9) As is often said, ‘in the good old days’, unconsumed food on the Indian Railways (if still fit for consumption) was despatched post-haste to orphanages or other charity institutions. This practice, to the best of my knowledge, was discontinued after the Emergency and has never been restored. Now the unconsumed food goes towards either making the "janata thaali box" or is sold further.

Over the last few decades, food on the roads in India, especially South and West India, has certainly improved. Quality at reasonable prices, mostly basic vegetarian, clean toilets, secure parking, polite and trained staff, all this and more, is more the rule than the exception. Add to that the vast number of franchised fast food restaurants, stand-alone as well as chains, and you have a recipe for safe victuals as an integral part of travel. 

By contrast, the Indian Railways, despite a huge move towards modernisation and avowed safety in kitchens after a few spectacular fire incidents in the last few years, has not really kept up with being customer centric in its approach. Being a monopoly, the "take it or leave it" attitude with food on our trains goes right up to the top and then comes crashing back again to the customer facing staff.

So what are possible solution?

1) Encourage passengers to bring their own food especially quick heat and eat. Frankly, if the Indian Railways do it like in Chinese trains, where they provide access to a hot water boiler for tea, coffee and noodles, a large percentage of the travelling public will be satisfied.

2) Multiple vendors should be encouraged to provide food on trains, either by app-based order system to supply food at scheduled halts or by small independent vendors selling officially, what they can carry on their persons - like the so-called "illegal" vendors do anyways. This should be purely quality of food and local delicacies based, and not as a profit unit for the Indian Railways.

3) A typical pantry car is deadweight being towed overnight. The same kitchen or pantry car can be a static base kitchen at a railway station, and be used for supplying food for trains passing through with scheduled stops there - and also to supply healthy food for people waiting on platforms.

Most of all, food will improve if Indian Railways gets back into the business of safe transportation from A to B, instead of trying to be everything for everybody, and then making additional money out of it too.

Done properly, local and regional food can do wonders on railway trains, as it used to. Sadly, we have come to a point now where, for example, even the vadas at Karjat and Lonavala are no longer a shade of what they used to be.

Railways to partner FSSAI to improve food safety in trains

Third party safety audit on the cards, says CEO of food safety body

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 17: 

The Railways and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will work together to ensure improved safety standards of the food being served in trains. The food regulator said it will also get a third party safety audit done soon.

“Our role will be to partner with the Railways and bring in systemic changes and improvements. Therefore, we will be getting a third party food safety audit done soon. This is not going to be an accounts or a performance audit, but a food safety audit which will help us understand the gaps within their systems in terms food safety,” Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI, told BusinessLine.

The Railways was in the news recently when an incident in the high-profile Tejas Express was reported wherein 24-26 people were hospitalised after “food poisoning”. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), however, denied any food quality issues in its preliminary probe report. Incidentally, CAG in its report, earlier had also termed the food served in trains as “unfit” for human consumption.

In the new catering policy, IRCTC has called for zones of the Indian Railways or IRCTC to ensure good quality and hygienic food to passengers.

However, ensuring quality processes across the supply chain for food served is a huge challenge, given that Railways has over 7,000 stations and moves over 2.2 crore passengers every day.

IRCTC serves about four-five lakh meals a day in about 350 trains where it has pantry cars. It will be modernising its base kitchens at 12 locations — where the proposed meal production is is expected to be 5.7 lakh a day.

Third party audit of mobile units and base kitchen is to be undertaken by zonal railway periodically, by hiring an independent agency in accordance with Catering Policy 2017.

As regards the premium Tejas Express, which runs between Mumbai and Goa, catering services are optional for passengers and are factored in the fare. However, if a passenger asks for catering services at a later stage, an extra ₹50 per cent per service is levied, in addition to the cost of catering charges.

To spruce up its catering quality, IRCTC plans to set up new kitchens and upgrade the existing ones, which will be owned, operated and managed by it, and it shall be fully accountable for all issues pertaining to the base kitchens and quality of food.

All four base kitchens under departmental operation of Zonal Railways (Nagpur, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Mumbai Central and Balharshah) and all kitchen units — refreshment rooms at A1 and A category stations, Jan Ahaar, Cell Kitchens shall be handed over to IRCTC on ‘as is where is basis’.

It also plans to introduce station based e-catering, pre-cooked food (‘ready to eat’ meals) , operation of centralised Catering Service Monitoring Cell for prompt redressal of passenger grievances relating to catering.

Huge challenge

However, carrying out a third party safety audit, though desirable, remains a huge challenge with the Railways managing a wide network of catering services spread over 131 base kitchens, 7,957 static catering units, 358 mobile catering units, 164 departmental refreshment rooms, 86 food plazas and 69 fast food units.

Diwali 2017: Beware! There is Adulterated Khoya Out There

Highlights

• None of us can detect the adulterant in the khoya or mithai visually
• Khoya may be adulterated with starch, blotting paper and fine flour
• Iodine test on khoya is an age old way to find out adulteration

Indians are looking forward to celebrate Diwali which will fall on 19th October, 2017. The festival of lights is incomplete without the quintessential sweets and savouries and you may agree, we all are guilty of stuffing ourselves with these yummy delights. Now that festivity is on its peak, meeting and greeting friends and family becomes one of the important rituals during the week-long festival. Most of the sweets consumed during Diwali normally have khoya present in it. Khoya is made with milk thickened by cooking it over low heat for hours. It’s commonly used for making a wide variety of Indian sweets or mithai. However, nowadays, when the demand of khoya is on the rise, some vendors, in order to meet these demands, may indulge in adulterating the dairy product by using harmful chemicals.

If you are buying khoya from outside or buying a mithai made with khoya, there is a chance it is not safe for consumption. None of us can detect adulterant in the khoya or mithai visually as they are concealed carefully. The khoya may be adulterated with starch, blotting paper and fine flour. It can also contain urea, detergent or water in the milk that was used to make khoya.The khoya may be adulterated with starch, blotting paper and fine flour

Here are two time tested ways to find out if the khoya is adulterated or not.

According to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), if one needs to find out the presence of starch in khoya, all you need to is to disperse a certain quantity of sample in hot water and treat it with simple iodine solution. If the colour of the khoya changes to blue, it will confirm the presence of starch in it. You can also use mawa testing kits that are available in the markets these days.

The next trick is simple and an old-age way to test if khoya is adulterated. All you need to do is to take some khoya in your hand before you buy and check for some tartness or rub a little on your palm. If it leaves your hand greasy and tastes slightly sweet, it is good to go.

Owing to some unscrupulous vendors, this may be a tricky time to eat khoya mithais from outside, so it is better to make sweets from scratch at home, at least you would know this way about the the quality of ingredients used.

Here’s the perfect way to make khoya at home–

All you need is full cream milk and a kadhai (wok). Bring the milk to a boil and let it simmer on low flame. Keep stirring. Milk will eventually thicken and start collecting into a solid mass. Voila, you’re done.

Keep your eyes wide open to the fake products being sold outside in the name of festivals. Eat healthy and enjoy the season!

Health department raids Jamshedpur sweets shops ahead of Diwali

Seizes suspected adulterated food items

Jamshedpur, Oct. 17 : With Diwali a few hours away, the district health department has embarked on a special drive to check the quality of sweets sold at various stalls across the city.

State health department’s food and safety wing on Tuesday conducted raids at four sweet shops and workshop at Sakchi and Jugsalai, keeping in view supplying of adulterated sweetmeats during the festival of Diwali.

The shops which were raided at Sakchi include Gokul Sweat Shop on Medicine Line and a `khowa’ wholesale shop on Tank Road. The team of food and safety wing raided at the workshop of Gangaur Sweets and ChhappanBhog in Jugsalai.

Revealing about the raids, Dr GulabLakra, food safety officer who led a two member team said that they had first gone over to the Tin Shed on Tank Road at Sakchi where there were four wholesale Khowa suppliers.

“We have been receiving complaints of food adulteration from theseunits and have collected samples which would be sent to food testinglaboratory at Ranchi today evening,” he said.

Lakra further added: “We had to conduct raid and take samples of Khowa from all these four shops, but as we started taking samples of the khowa and completing at one the shop, the owners of remaining three shops fled, having downed their shutters.”

“At the Gokul Sweat Shop we collected the samples of KajuBarfi, and BesanLadoo. At Jugsalai also we took the samples of KajuBarfi, BesanLadoo and Chhana-based sweets from the workshops of Gangaur Sweets and ChhapanBhog,” said the food safety officer.

The officer added that samples were being collected mainly to checkadulteration and use of non-permitted colours. “Samples will be sentto the laboratory and based on its report action will be taken,” they added.

Use of harmful synthetic colours, including dyes were not permitted.But small manufacturers use the banned items just to give more colourto the sweets so as to make it attractive, officials said.

Most of the sweets manufactured in the district were from theunorganised sector — houses or group of people joining together tomake a fast buck.

Actions against the sweet manufacturer, after lab report would beinitiated as per Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 (revised in 2012).

Food safety wing seizes 570kg adulterated ghee, cream

PATNA: The food safety wing of state health department on Tuesday seized 570kg of substandard ghee and cream kept in 38 containers at a Masaurhi dairy, which supplies milk products to many sweetshops in Patna.

"We also found 20kg 'khoya' that was not fit for consumption," said Mukesh Kashyap, who led the three-member team, which raided different sweet shops in Masaurhi, Nadma and Punpun areas of Patna district.

The raids are conducted on the eve of Diwali ever year to check the market for adulterated sweetmeats. The team had also raided one shop each at Ramnagri and Machhuatoli and four in Kadamkuan locality on Monday and three shops near Saguna Mor on Sunday.

The officials found a layer of aluminium, and not silver, foil over many sweets. They said silver foil is good for health, but many traders use aluminium foil as it costs less. "Some traders are also using non-food colours instead of food colours," added Kashyap.

Dr Himanshu Kumar from Patna Medical College and Hospital's medicine department, said adulteration can cause serious gastric problems and may also affect kidney and liver. "Consumption of aluminium foil and non-food colours, that are often toxic, may lead to encephalitis and can affect muscles and also cause Alzheimer's," he said.

Dr Diwakar Tejaswi said artificial sweeteners and non-approved food colours may also cause rashes and insomnia. "If someone experiences abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting or loose motion, they should consult a doctor," he said and added that consumption of adulterated food may also lead to insomnia and intestinal disorder. Prolonged consumption may also cause changes in the gene which may lead to cancer.

Doctors, meanwhile, recommend the use of homemade sweets that are not only delicious but nutritious as well.

Chennai Hotel Serves Food Garnished With Cockroach, Faces Action

Chennai, October 18: A hotel in Chennai is facing action after it served food garnished with a cockroach. The alleged bug was spotted by a filmmaker in the dish he had ordered for his daughter.

Director K Mageswaran immediately called up food safety authorities and shared pictures and a video with them, NDTV reported.

During inspection, food safety officials revealed that there were baby cockroaches behind the stainless steel layered wall in the kitchen. A case has been filed against the food outlet of unhygienic manufacturing practices.

“The restaurant staff has accepted that the cockroach was present in the food. We’ve given them strict instructions on things to be put in place. Within a week we will present our charges to the Divisional Revenue Officer for action,” said Food safety officer R Kathiravan.

The food outlet is a part of a chain of over 100 restaurants run by the Adyar Ananda Bhavan group. The group has denied allegations of unhygienic kitchen conditions. “The picture of the cockroach the customer has sent is fake, I believe. We have carried out whatever instructions the food safety officials have given us. We threw open our food production centre for them to inspect,” said Vishnu Shankar, Managing Director of the group.

Kamothe sweetmaking unit raided

Navi Mumbai: Ahead of Diwali, a joint raid was conducted by PCMC health department and FDA that sealed a sweet manufacturing unit at Kamothe node and seized around 66kg of sweets (Barfi and Khawa) worth Rs 15,500 for not complying to food safety and standard rules as the manufacturing premises was found to be extremely unhygienic and unhealthy. FDA officials will soon revoke the licence of the unit. The raid was carried out on Monday.

Acting on a tip, the PCMC health department reached the spot and summoned FDA officials for further proceeding which took hours to seize the products and seal the unit. "We found the unit in a shoddy condition. We took samples of the sweets to be sent to laboratory for a test," said Balaji Shinde, food safety inspector.

The FDA officials slapped a stop-activity notice on the unit called Shreeji Sweets and Nilkanth Bhatti. "We received a few complaints from the locals," said a PCMC official.

FDA confiscates 100kg of sweets at Ponda

Panaji: Continuing with its ongoing drive, the Food and Drugs (FDA) administration on Tuesday raided a premises at St Cruz near ID Hospital, Ponda which was found to be operating under unhygienic conditions. The sweet and snack manufacturing unit was operated by Ramdev Modi.

"He was found operating the unit without any licence," said FDA director, Salim Veljee. The utensils used for preparing the sweets were rusted, while water was stored in an open area.

"The food business operator was directed to stop the illegal activities immediately, and the premises has been sealed," he said.

The officials confiscated about 100 kgs of sweets such as kaju burfi and bundi laadoo and mava of 55 kgs which were found stored in rusted tins. All the food items have been confiscated.

The raiding team consisted of senior food safety officer (FSO), Rajiv Korde, FSO Atul Dessai and staff Uday Arsekar and Rama Gaonkar.