Sep 10, 2019
Biodiesel from used cooking oil soon
Coimbatore: The food safety department has launched a survey to estimate the quantity of used oil generated by food vendors, including restaurants and bakeries, in the district.
The department plans to identify entrepreneurs, who can collect used cooking oil and convert it into biofuel or biodiesel that can be used to run vehicles and machines.
Restaurants and bakeries now sell used oil to street food vendors or dump it in garbage or pour it into water bodies. Street vendors reuse it for frying. However, consumption of such food leads to health hazards like increased cholesterol, acidity and risk of cancer.
The department had called restaurateurs and bakery owners for a meeting early this month and asked them to keep a tab on the amount of cooking oil consumed and disposed daily. “We also asked food safety officers in all zones and blocks to visit restaurants and bakeries and collect the data,” designated food safety officer Tamilselvan said. “We will approach the food business operators, who are using more than 50 litres of oil, to collect the data and prepare a final estimate on the amount of oil used for frying and that disposed a day.”
Once they have the numbers, the officials plan to identify agencies, companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs, who have the technology to convert used oil into biofuel. “The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) had launched the concept of repurpose used cooking oil (Ruco). It had shown examples of entrepreneurs in other parts of the country making biofuel. We need to find companies in our vicinity that can do it,” Tamilselvan told TOI.
The FSSAI website highlights the case of a Haryana-based entrepreneur, who is converting 5,000 litres of used oil into biofuel a day. The company uses transesterification process. It can convert vegetable oil and animal fat into biofuel. The product is sold to fuel producers and residential areas to run electric generators.
“While the concept is new to us, we plan to explore options once we have the estimates,” the officer added.
Aavin working to get food safety system certification
Stage I audit has been completed for three city dairies
In keeping with industry standards, Aavin has embarked upon food safety system certification for its dairies at Ambattur, Madhavaram and Sholinganallur that supply mainly to the city.
The dairies already have have ISO 9001:2005, HACCP certification (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point is an internationally accepted technique for preventing microbiological, chemical and physical contamination along the food supply chain) and FSSC 22000 certification.
“Stage I audit has been completed for these dairies. Recently, our Tiruvannamalai dairy that also has the capability to process milk into whole milk powder and butter, got the FSSC 22000 certification — Food Safety System Certification,” explained C. Kamaraj, Managing Director, Aavin.
For safe products
“This is a certification of our food safety management system that provides assurance to consumers that we have implemented systems that consistently provide safe products. The certificate for the Tiruvannamalai plant that also processes ghee is valid till July 30, 2022,” he said.
This certification, the latest version of international standards, provides Aavin a systematic method for analysing food processes, determining possible hazards, and designating the critical control points. The steps are necessary to prevent unsafe food from reaching the consumer, he said. It also helps Aavin to increase its customer base, especially among foreign customers, he said. “The U.S. and other countries have this certification as a requirement for food products. The Global Food Safety Initiative recognises this system too,” he said.
The Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation, whose brand is Aavin, has been ensuring certification at all its dairies to provide quality food products to consumers. “We began five years ago and all our dairies have some kind of certification and we constantly upgrade them to ensure quality, which is very important in the food industry. The dairy at Tiruvannamalai also has an export licence for milk powder and ghee,” Mr. Kamaraj said.
In the south, only Karnataka’s cooperative dairy federation has FSSC 2200 certification, he added.
Eateries’ thumbs up to hygiene norms
Kolkata: Eating out will be safer and only the best restaurants will survive once the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) rules are enforced, felt restaurant owners in Kolkata. The rules will make it mandatory for eateries to display their hygiene ratings.
While some of the regulations could be difficult to follow — especially for the smaller operators — they will definitely boost standards. The FSSAI on Thursday announced that hygiene ratings will be given to restaurants based on the extent of their compliance with the recommended safety standards.
“This is a positive move and will help customers choose the right place for a meal. Once you have the ratings, there will be no doubt about the hygienic standard of the food. We believe that a restaurant should also be assessed on its hygiene standards,” said Hotel and Restaurants’ Association of Eastern India (HRAEI) executive committee member Sudesh Poddar.
Even though hygiene norms have never been an issue for prominent restaurants in Kolkata, the display of ratings will prevent even minor slip-ups, said Nitin Kothari, owner of the iconic Mocambo and Peter Cat on Park Street. “This will make every restaurant more conscious of their hygiene and cleanliness standards. Moreover, consumers will now have an idea about the hygiene and safety of the food that they are going to be served. It is their right as they are paying for it. We expect the display of ratings to lead to an overall improvement in safety and quality standards,” said Kothari.
While some of the FSSAI norms could be difficult to implement, they were certainly aimed at raising the bar, felt Chili’s owner Hrishi Bajoria. “It’s a good move and will keep everyone on their toes. I have gone through some of the recommendations and they seem to be logical. My only wish is that the norms should be enforced positively and not with an intent to harass,” Bajoria said. He added that being part of a global chain of eateries, Chili’s adheres to even stricter hygiene norms than the FSSAI recommendations.
A Park Street restaurant owner said small roadside eateries that have mushroomed over the last few years and depend on food delivery apps for business could find it difficult to stick to the norms. “Many of them don’t even have a proper kitchen. So, following the FSSAI guidelines may be impossible for them. But that can’t be an excuse to compromise on hygiene,” he said.
Several countries have made it mandatory to display hygiene ratings, pointed out Kothari. “Even street food vendors are made to follow safety norms abroad. This could be a huge step towards raising awareness about the need to serve healthy food,” Kothari added.
Zarine Tangree, owner of Olypub on Park Street, too, lauded the move saying it will help restaurants add to their credibility. “Those who follow good hygiene standards will gain from this. The rest will now be identified and forced to improve,” Tangree said.
FDA crackdown reaches mall, lens on non-veg items
Bhopal: Continuing its crackdown against adulteration, a team of food and drug administration (FDA) on Monday, inspected the fruits and edibles being sold at a city mall and collected samples.
While inspecting a store at the mall, the team found that apples with wax coating are being sold, without any disclaimer or label indicating the same.
Senior food safety officer from Bhopal, DK Verma, said that the Food Safety Act makes it mandatory for a seller to declare to the customers that the fruits being sold are wax-coated.
Only three types of wax are permitted on fruits — bees wax, carnauba wax and shellac wax. Use of paraffin wax is banned, he said.
The store selling the wax-coated apples admitted to the mistake and immediately put up a display board after the inspection. Samples were collected to check the purity of ghee and besan ladoos being sold at the store, said an official. FDA has also started inspecting shops selling non-vegetarian food products. Verma said, sale of a few species of fish is banned during monsoon.
Information on sshops selling those species would be sent to the fisheries department, he said. A second FDA team, meanwhile, was collecting samples of paneer and ghee from Kolar.
Officials said, Rajeev Gupta, owner of a chilling plant at Lahar in Bhind district, who was absconding ever since his plant was raided by the Special Task Force (STF) on July 19, surrendered before a civil court on Monday. The court ordered his arrest and handed him over to STF on remand till September 12.
Food supplied to anganwadis found unfit for consumption
A fine of Rs 20,000 was imposed on those officials responsible for supplying unfit food items to anganwadi centres.
At a time when the state and central governments have come under fire over malnutrition of children, a recent report by food safety authorities has found glaring violations at a food production centre with staples like wheat flour containing live insects.
For years, food being supplied to anganwadis would pass rigorous testing by the FSSAI.
That changed this month when state authorities found food items so poor in quality that some were even deemed “unsafe.”
Testing of samples collected at Banavara, outside Bengaluru, by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) found that usually, containers of sambar powder, rice, rice flour, ragi, moong dal and sugar passed with the usual notations of “satisfactory.”
But then, inspectors began to find living insects in stocks of tur dal, groundnut seeds and cleaned wheat, coupled with the presence of a dangerous chemical in stocks of mustard, plus excess fat in soya flour.
Staff members of the Mahila Supplementary Nutrition Production and Training Centres (MSPTCs), who had supplied the items, were booked under Section 56 of the Food Standards and Safety Act, 2006.
Rs 20k fine imposed
A fine of Rs 20,000 was also imposed on those officials responsible for supplying food items to anganwadis.
“This is the first negative report we have recieved in the last two years. Food materials from the 137 centres are checked every month. Following the report, we have increased vigilance,” an official said.
Family health survey
The discovery comes at a time when there has been renewed focus on the problem of malnutrition in the state.The 2015-16 National Family Health Survey determined that Karnataka is among the worst-affected states when it comes to malnutrition in south India, with 36.2% of children under the age of 5 being stunted and 26.1% of children under 5 being weak. A further 10.5% of children 5 were classified as severely weak.
State malnutrition figures released by the Department of Women and Children in April, which includes statistics from 15 districts, showed varying levels of malnutrition among children in the age group of 0-6 years, belonging to economically weaker sections of the society. Koppal district tops the list with a malnutrition rate of 29.9% in January 2019.
Kerala's action plan to fight trans fat with World Bank, WHO
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fast-tracking its efforts to eliminate industrially produced trans fat from the food items sold in the state, the Commissionerate of Food Safety is giving final touches to an action plan. As per sources, it will be finalised within a week and handed over to the World Bank (WB), and World Health Organisation (WHO) for feedback. Meanwhile, to coordinate various activities being planned and for enforcement, the Commissionerate has also appointed an officer at the state level.
“At the national level, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is in the process of reducing the industrially produced trans-fatty acids to less than two per cent by 2022. The state is working towards achieving this target a year before,” said Rathan U Kelkar, Commissioner of Food Safety. According to him, the state has adopted a three-pronged strategy to combat the scourge of trans fat and that includes a random sampling of food items, creating awareness among stakeholders and enforcement.
“We had some meetings with the stakeholders like bakers, hotels and restaurant association and manufacturers of pickles. While they have assured us that they will reduce the trans fat, sugar and salt content in food items in a time-bound manner, they are yet to give us a timeline. We had asked them to come out with a timeline on when they could achieve it,” added Rathan.
At the same time, of the 134 samples collected by the Food Safety Department from Ernakulam and Kozhikode districts, it has been found that more than 75 per cent had trans fat which is beyond the permissible limit. In India, the current permitted level of trans fat is 5 per cent.
The other major study about trans fat is currently under way at the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. Here, the Department of Community Medicine is engaged in a sample collection drive, as part of a nation-wide study mooted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), for finding the content of trans fatty acids, salt and sugar in snack foods, baked foods and fried foods and the rate of morbidity due to the same.
“The study – Consumption Pattern of Food and Food Products High in Fat, Salt and Sugar – is part of ICMR’s plan to come out with new dietary guidelines for India. As part of the study, dietary details, status of noncommunicable diseases and lifestyle profile of persons will be collected. We got intimation it has been extended to December,” said Dr P S Indu, head of the Department of Community Medicine and principal investigator of the study.
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