Restaurants to have food supervisors

New Delhi, Feb. 9: Food regulator FSSAI will soon come out with a draft regulation for organic foods to ensure safety across the value chain through proper certification of such products, a top official said Thursday.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) also plans to make it mandatory for hotels and restaurants to keep one trained and certified food safety supervisor, FSSAI CEO Pawan Agarwal said. For capacity building, the FSSAI on Thursday tied up with the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Northern India (HRANI) to launch its programme for training of master trainers.

“We are taking 360 degree approach to food safety and healthy nutrition to prevent food borne infections and disease and for complete nutrition for citizens everywhere at all times,” Mr Agarwal told reporters here.

To achieve this, he said the regulator has been taking various initiatives and issued new standards.

“We are soon coming out with regulations for organic food. Initial draft is now ready with us which has been prepared after consultations with various stakeholders,” he said.

There are some certification programmes for organic foods, he said, adding, “We are creating an umbrella regulations. Traceability is an important factor in organic foods market”.

The draft would also propose setting up of a committee to suggest any change in the certification method being followed currently or need for a new certification system, he added.

Mr Agarwal said the regulator is in final phase of national milk survey, noting that the “magnitude of problem is not as big”.

On tie up with HRANI, he said it will extend support to FSSAI towards organising a series of training sessions for master trainers, who would train food safety supervisors across 1,700 organisations including hotels and restaurants across nine northern states.