FSSAI comes up with Hygiene Rating Scheme for food service sector

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has recently introduced a new scheme namely Hygiene Rating Scheme for food service sector such as hotels and restaurants, cafeterias, etc. FSSAI’s Hygiene Rating Scheme is a user driven, technology-enabled scheme applicable to food businesses supplying food directly to consumers either on or off the premise. As per the scheme, food businesses are rated on the basis of food hygiene and safety conditions found at the time of inspection, and given a score between 1 and 5 as per their hygiene and food safety compliance. The core intention behind this scheme is to allow consumers to make an informed food choice about where to eat and inculcate right eating habits, while encouraging food businesses to adopt high hygiene standards and to sustain them so as to showcase the same to their consumers. In addition, there are already Regulations viz. the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses), Regulations, 2011, to check the reuse of cooking oil by the caterers. In the said regulation, the following guidelines are provided: 

• Re-use of cooking oil should be avoided; In case of reheating of oil, use maximum three times to avoid the formation of trans-fat. It is ideal to use once, if possible.
• Re-heating and reuse of oil should be avoided as far as possible.
• Avoid using left over oil wherever possible. However, vegetable oil having developed Total Polar Compound more than 25% shall not be used.

On 10 August 2018, the FSSAI launched a new initiative ‘Repurpose Used Cooking Oil’ which is an ecosystem that will enable the collection and conversion of used cooking oil to bio-diesel. FSSAI has issued directions on 30 January 2019 requiring Food Business Operators (FBOs), whose consumption of edible oils for frying is more than 50 liters per day, to maintain usage records and dispose the used cooking oil to authorized aggregators for being delivered to bio-diesel manufacturers. Detailed guidelines have also been issued for handling & disposal of used cooking oil by FBOs to ensure safe handling and disposal of used cooking oil.