FSSAI-Industry initiative to address food borne illnesses and spoilage by micro–organisms

New Delhi, June 29 (KNN) In an initiative to address food borne illnesses and spoilage by micro–organisms, Foods Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) collaborated with the industry to promote science based food safety measures.

For addressing the twin problems, a public lecture on the subject by well-known food microbiologist and co-founder of the largest online food microbiology database (ComBase) , Prof Mark Tamplin (University of Tasmania) was organized.

A Bakery Training module, as part of the training package for Micro, Small and Medium Food Business Operators was also launched which aims at assisting FBOs in the Bakery sector to develop and implement their Food Safety Plan.

Last year, FSSAI had signed a MOU with CHIFSS, a partnership initiative on food safety sciences between the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) to promote science based food safety.

Prof Tamplin, who spoke on the subject “Predictive Models and Sensors in food supply chain to enhance food safety” highlighted the importance of understanding and characterizing the relationship between food and micro-organisms for building data on the prevalence and behaviour of pathogens and spoilage organisms in foods.

“This would not only help in predicting the shelf life of products, but also in developing safer food formulations,” he said.

Drawing a linkage between agriculture and safe food processing, Ashish Bahuguna, Chairperson, FSSAI, highlighted the importance of understanding and learning the best international practices.

Such knowledge building efforts would not only ensure safer food for domestic consumption, but will also boost exports.

Speaking on the occasion, he said the idea is to work towards improving food safety through facts & data based technical approaches, food safety plan guidance documents and on-line training programs.

Geetu Verma, Executive Director – Foods, HUL, in her opening remarks emphasized on the need for building food safety capability in India and reiterated HUL’s commitment to CHIFSS.

 “Food safety is a huge challenge in a country like India and thus government alone cannot be held responsible for it, all stakeholders should come together to address the issue”, added Verma.