FSSAI makes food safety experts must in eateries

Kolkata: The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has made it mandatory for hotels and restaurants to have at least one person trained in food safety in order to check adulteration in food.

“A two-month training module has been conceived to impart the knowledge essential for maintaining hygiene standards in hotels and restaurants in compliance with the Food Safety and Standards Act, Rules and Regulations,” said Pawan Kumar Agarwal, chief executive officer of FSSAI, at an interactive session on food safety at Bharat Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

The trained and certified food safety supervisor will ensure providing safe and nutritious food to consumers. The person who will be trained will pass on his lessons to the other staff.

Mr Agarwal said that the FSSAI had launched a food safety training and certification programme (FoSTaC), with 19 short courses, from basic to advanced and specialised courses for street food vendors, restaurants chefs, caterers, food business operators as well as the general public.

Mr Agarwal said that they had prepared guidelines on what is required at home, work place, and schools to ensure safe and nutritious food.

“The FSSAI will soon come out with new regulations related to labelling of packaged food products,” he added.

Stressing the need to strengthen the food testing infrastructure in the country, Mr Agarwal said: “Canada, with less than three per cent of India’s population, has 6,000 food inspectors but the figure is much low here.”