Regulator wants private firms to help make food safe for Indians

NEWDELHI: A sector regulator and the companies under its watch aren’t usually partners. The regulator frames the rules and ensures that companies abide by them. But Pawan Kumar Agarwal, CEO of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), believes companies can join hands with the food regulator in its primary task—ensuring safe food for every Indian.

Towards that end, the local unit of American beverages company Coca-Cola Co formally singed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FSSAI on Monday. Under the agreement, Coca-Cola India will train 50,000 street food vendors, irrespective of items they sell, over the next three years. The vendors will get training on how to prepare safe food, ensure hygiene, and in waste management.

Coca-Cola and FSSAI are now finalising the curriculum for the training. The field training will start next month in Ludhiana, Punjab. Training retailers is not new for Coca-Cola. It has, in the past 10 years, offered training to about 350,000 retailers in India, but has never trained street food vendors, said Venkatesh Kini, president (India and South West Asia), Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola is not alone. Nestle India Ltd, the local arm of the Swiss packaged food company whose single-largest revenue earner Maggi instant noodles was banned by FSSAI in 2015 for about six months on safety concerns, has recently worked with the regulator to train 700 street food vendors in Goa.

“Besides Nestle and CocaCola, we are also working with companies like ITC Ltd, Mondelez India, TetraPak, Jubilant FoodWorks, Yum Brands, among others, for different projects related to nutrition and food safety,” Agarwal said.

While cigarette-to-biscuit maker ITC is working with FSSAI to ensure nutritious food at about 10,000 schools, Mondelez is working on ensuring safe food and nutrition at 40 underprivileged schools in north Delhi besides the points of sale in the retail market, as per the regulator.

IN SEPTEMBER, FSSAI INITIATED A PROGRAMME TO PROMOTE SAFE FOOD AT PLACES, INCLUDING HOMES, SCHOOLS, OFFICES, EATERIES AND RELIGIOUS PLACES