DINAKARAN NEWS

Crackdown on roadside eateries

Three roadside eateries were found to be operating without licences during an inspection carried out by the Food Safety Department on Thursday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three roadside eateries were found to be operating without licences during an inspection carried out by the Food Safety Department on Thursday. Another food joint that was located near Pattom Junction was found to be using a non-permissible colour in a non-vegetarian dish. “Thirteen establishments including five mobile food stalls were inspected. Athazam, Irani Hotel, Keerthi (Sasthamangalam), food stalls in Manaveeyam Veedhi and near the Secretariat were among the 13 food joints inspected by our night squad. The food stalls found to be operating without a licence have been issued rectification notices,” said Sangeeth S, food safety officer. 

However, according to food safety authorities, the number of irregularities found in the food sold by roadside eateries are on the decline. Awareness drives and the raids which were carried out by the Food Safety Department two months ago were the two factors that helped improve the safety standards of roadside eateries. “A majority of the street food outlets have shifted to stainless steel and provide tissues and water dispensers for drinking and washing purposes. The use of synthetic food colours has also decreased,” said Sangeeth. Despite facing a shortage of staff, the Food Safety Department is planning to conduct at least one raid every month to check food safety violations in the city. 

The authorities had also conducted raids on major fish markets located in the district over the last few days. “Ten kilograms of stale fish were seized from a vendor at the Kesavadasapuram fish market on Tuesday. A preliminary test is needed to find out if there are any anomalies in the 29 samples that we had collected from the markets,” said a food safety official. 

To create awareness on food safety, training for 50 hotel staff will be given by the food safety authorities as part of the Food Safety Training and Certification Programme (FoSTaC) of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on February 28. “We are also planning to organise training regarding food safety for those at roadside food stalls soon. They will be given a food safety certificate after completing the training,” said Alex K Issac, assistant food safety commissioner. 

Despite facing a shortage of staff, the Food Safety Department is planning to conduct at least one raid every month to check violations

Labelling regulations: FSSAI goes for nutrient threshold study

Draft norms impractical; mayhurt product quality: industry

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which is in the process of overhauling the labelling regulations for packaged food products, has begun a nutrient threshold study to assess the current market scenario.

The draft regulations propose colour-coded labelling to enable consumers to identify products that are high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products.

The draft regulations had proposed certain thresholds and packaged products display red-color coding if levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar are higher than the prescribed threshold levels. However, industry had called these nutrient thresholds “impractical”, and had raised concerns that if implemented in the current form, would require majority of products to display red-colour coding on their labels.

The industry associations in their submission said that stringent thresholds will have an adverse impact on product quality and may lead to loss of consumer preference. Minister for State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwani Kumar Choubey informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Friday, “The FSSAI has notified draft Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2019, on June 25, 2019 for inviting public comments. Around 900 comments were received. In addition, industry associations also raised concerns on the specified thresholds of salt, sugar and fat and requested to contextualise thresholds based on Indian scenario.”

He added that the Ministry of Food Processing has also urged the FSSAI to constitute a working group to review the thresholds.

“The Scientific Panel concerned deliberated upon the comments and recommended to constitute a Working Group and to initiate a study to obtain market-validated, category-wise baseline data for reviewing the thresholds. Accordingly, as per the Scientific Panel’s recommendation, the FSSAI has initiated a nutrient threshold study to assess the current Indian market scenario,” the Minister stated in his reply.

Revised ‘honey’ standards

In a separate reply to a query raised whether reduction in pollen count from 25,000 to 5,000 in the revised standards for Indian honey is disincentivising honeygrowers, the Minister said,

“The FSSAI informed that revision in pollen count requirement has been made based on the inputs received from the experts from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and the Central Bee Research and Training Institute (CBRTI), representing the true picture of pollen count in Indian honey.”